Integrating Mental Health into Pediatric Primary Care

June 19, 2019, 8:30-9:30 am EDT

Speaker:
Vandad Sharifi, M.D.
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry, Roozbeh Hospital
Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Moderator:
Beverly Pringle, Ph.D.
Director
Center for Global Mental Health
National Institute for Mental Health
Overview: This webinar is designed primarily for researchers and health care practitioners interested in the integration of mental health care into primary care for children and adolescents living in low-resource settings. Depression, anxiety, exposure to trauma, other mental disorders, and suicide are becoming the leading health problems of youth. Psychosocial interventions focused on strengthening problem solving, social and emotional skills, and general life skills can be effective in mitigating the effects of adverse experiences and in improving youth’s mental health and reducing the occurrence of emotional and behavioral problems. Primary care offers a promising avenue for reaching youth with these interventions. Because primary care serves many normative conditions, mental health care delivered in this context can be both more accessible and more acceptable. Dr. Vandad Sharifi will speak about his work integrating – and studying the integration of – mental health care into primary care for children and adolescents in Iran. This webinar will be moderated by Dr. Beverly Pringle, Director of the NIMH Center for Global Mental Health Research.