Scaling-Up Stepped Care for Women's Mental Health in Primary Care in an LMIC

This stepped care model involves three steps. Step 1 is a peer and nurse co-led 8-session group based upon BRIDGES. Step 2 is peer or nurse led 6-session individual meetings based upon Interpersonal Psychotherapy. Step 3 is primary care physician led medication treatment with Amitriptyline.

Standard outpatient care supplemented with literature on healthy lifestyles will serve as an enhanced control condition. In each clinic, non-specialty mental health care is available in the form of counseling from doctors or nurses along with psychiatric medication management. Given the difficulties faced by women in Tajikistan, ethical responsibility compels us to enhance the control condition by having nurses distribute written materials on healthy eating, physical fitness, and personal hygiene, at a reading level which will be widely accessible.