Pragya Shrestha

Coordinator-II| Clinical Supervisor
  Kathmandu

Ms. Pragya Shrestha has been working for more than a decade in psychosocial and mental health in TPO Nepal. She has been engaged in many mental health research projects that include cultural adaptation and contextualization of evidence-based psychosocial interventions for depression, such as Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), Problem Management Plus (PM+), etc.  Her role included clinical quality assurance, clinical supervision, technical inputs in regular training manuals to ensure the quality of the services and products, providing trainings to counselors, health workers, teachers and other community stakeholders, and counseling services to clients. Parallel to the clinical side, she is predominantly engaged in the research activities. She has authored more than 8 articles in the international peer-reviewed journal. Currently, she is working in the capacity of Research Fellow under the project ENHANCE at the University of Liverpool with an aim to adapt, and pilot test an intervention for perinatal depression in Nepal. In addition, she is also involved in competency-based training and supervision of IPT-A with lay helpers in the project SAATHI-II with an aim to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of delivering IPT in schools and test which mechanism of IPT what conditions work for whom.

Publications:

  1. Pedersen GA, Shrestha P, Akellot J, Sepulveda A, Luitel N, Kasujja R, Contreras C, Galea JT, Moran L, Neupane V, Rimal D, Schafer A and Kohrt BA (2023). A mixed methods evaluation of a World Health Organization competency-based training package for foundational helping competencies among pre-service and in-service health workers in Nepal, Peru and Uganda. Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1017/gmh.2023.43
  2. Rose-Clarke, K., Prakash, B. K., Magar, J., Pradhan, I., Shrestha, P., Hassan, E., … & Luitel, N. P. (2022). School-based group interpersonal therapy for adolescents with depression in rural Nepal: a mixed methods study exploring feasibility, acceptability, and cost. Global Mental Health9, 416-428
  3. Ghimire, R., & Shrestha, P. (2021). Personal Reflection on Group PM+ in Nepal: The Importance of Cultural Adaptation and Supervision. Intervention, 19 (1), 125-130.
  4. Pedersen, G.A., Sangraula, M., Shrestha, P., Lakshmin, P., Schafer, A., Ghimire, R., Luitel, N.P., Jordans, M.J.D & Kohrt B.A. (2021).Developing the Group Facilitation Assessment of Competencies Tool for Group-Based Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Interventions in Humanitarian and Low-Resource Settings. Journal on Education in Emergencies.
  5. Sangraula, M., Kohrt, B. A., Ghimire, R., Shrestha, P., Luitel, N. P., Van’t Hof, E., Dawson K.,  Jordans, M.J.D (2021). Development of the mental health cultural adaptation and contextualization for implementation (mhCACI) procedure: a systematic framework to prepare evidence-based psychological interventions for scaling. Global Mental Health 8, e6, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1017/gmh.2021.5
  6. Rose-Clarke, K., Pradhan, I., Shrestha, P., Prakash, B. K., Magar, J., Luitel, N. P., … & Verdeli, H. (2020). Culturally and developmentally adapting group interpersonal therapy for adolescents with depression in rural Nepal. BMC psychology, 8(1), 1-15.
  7. van’t Hof, E., Sangraula, M., Luitel, N.P., Turner, E.L., Marahatta, K., van Ommeren, M., Shrestha,P., Bryant, R., Kohrt, B.A. and Jordans, M.J., 2020. Effectiveness of Group Problem Management Plus (Group-PM+) for adults affected by humanitarian crises in Nepal: study protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial. Trials, 21, pp.1-16.
  8. A Letter from Nepal, Shrestha, P. Insight, The Lancet Psychiatry, Vol. 7, p576, July 2020
  9. Jordans, M. J., Luitel, N. P., Garman, E., Kohrt, B. A., Rathod, S. D., Shrestha, P., … & Patel, V. (2019).  Effectiveness  of  psychological  treatments  for  depression  and  alcohol  use  disorder delivered by community-based counsellors: two pragmatic randomised controlled trials within primary healthcare in Nepal. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 215(2), 485-493.
  10. Kohrt, B. A., Jordans, M. J., Rai, S., Shrestha, P., Luitel, N. P., Ramaiya, M. K., … & Patel, V. (2015). Therapist competence in global mental health: development of the ENhancing Assessment of Common Therapeutic factors (ENACT) rating scale. Behaviour research and therapy, 69, 11-21.
  11. Upadhaya, N., Luitel, N. P., Koirala, S., Adhikari, R. P., Gurung, D., Shrestha, P., … & Jordans, M. D. (2014). The role of mental health and psychosocial support nongovernmental organisations: reflections from post conflict Nepal. Intervention, 12(Supplement 1), 113-28.

Contact Details:

Email: [email protected]

Telephone number(s): +977-9841945152

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pragya-shrestha-ba02058/