Mental Health Training Programs for Non-Health Professionals and Volunteers Working with Asylum Seekers and Refugees: A Scoping Review Protocol

Abstract

The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide is increasing. It is an imperative challenge to provide mental health training for non-health professionals and volunteers who work with those vulnerable populations. The objective is to identify mental health training programs for non-health professionals and volunteers, without mental health training, to work with asylum seekers or refugees in any context. Literature about mental health training programs for adults, non-health professionals and volunteers without mental health training, working, or who have worked, or will work, with asylum seekers or refugees will be considered. Literature published in English, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish, and French will be considered. Literature reporting training programs exclusively for professionals or volunteers in the health or mental health domains will be excluded. The following electronic databases will be searched: MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection, SCOPUS, ERIC, RCAAP, and OPEN GREY. Other sites to be searched: ClinicalTrials, UNHCR, IOM, WHO, Save the Children, IMISCOE, and IFRC. The screening process will entail two steps carried out by two independent reviewers: firstly, screening by title and abstract, and secondarily, by full text. Data will describe the literature according to the review research questions that were defined following the PPC mnemonic, and presented graphically with a narrative.

Mental health training programs for non-health professionals and volunteers working with asylum-seekers and refugees: scoping review

“…This scoping review was conducted according to the JBI methodology for scoping reviews ( 29 , 30 ) , following an a priori published protocol which describes the methodological procedures used ( 24 ) .…”

“…Then, a full search strategy described in Chart 1 with terms adapted for each source, was carried out in the MEDLINE (EBSCO), CINAHL (EBSCO), ERIC, SCOPUS, PsycINFO, Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection, and in the grey literature databases The Scientific Open Access Repository of Portugal (RCAAP), and ProQuest. In the scoping review protocol ( 24 ) , the authors identified as a source of grey literature the OpenGrey database. However, OpenGrey was discontinued in 2021.…”

“…Two independent authors extracted data from the sources included in the scoping review using a data extraction tool developed by the reviewers presented in the published scoping review protocol ( 24 ) . The principal investigator gathered and compiled in tables all the extracted information according to the developed tool.…”

“…Mental health competence is understood as the ability (attitudes, knowledge, skills, and behaviours) ( 23 ) to effectively promote prevention, care, treatment, and advocacy for mental health. This competence requires knowledge to protect their self-mental health; to recognize people’s suffering, based on their cultural competencies; to provide basic psychosocial support to vulnerable populations during their overwhelming life transitions; and an empowerment skill to refer people for specialized mental care or to mental health professionals ( 24 ) .…”