Global Mental Health Short Course

The five days Global Mental Health Course on “Global Mental Health Assessment and Measurement: Best Practices and New Directions” was successfully conducted from August 29, 2022, to September 2, 2022, to address the growing recognition of the need for culturally adapted and validated tools to study mental health across cultures and contexts. The course was inaugurated by Dr. Pradip Gyanwali, Member Secretary of Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC), and started with a short speech from Dr. Brandon Kohrt, George Washington University, and Dr. Saroj Prasad Ojha, Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Medicine, TU and vote of thanks from Dr. Kamal Gautam, Executive Director, TPO Nepal. The course was conducted on the premises of the Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Medicine, Maharajgunj, Kathmandu with the facilitation of representatives from TPO Nepal, George Washington University, and the TU Department of Psychiatry. There was the participation of a total of 25 early career researchers (21 national, 4 international) who came from the psychiatry, medicine, public health, nursing, and psychology fields. The objectives of the short course were to disseminate a better understanding of why transcultural translation, adaptation, and validation are needed and to better interpret the scientific rigor of tools used in global mental health research. Topics such as transcultural translation and adaptation of psychometric tools, involvement of people with lived experiences (PWLEs) in measurement, innovative strategies in measurement and psychometric analyses, and validation with structured clinical tools were covered in the course.