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REVIEW

Public Health Rev

Volume 46 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/phrs.2025.1607759

This article is part of the Special Issue TRANSFORMATIVE PUBLIC HEALTH EDUCATION View all 19 articles

Implementation of the Community Component of the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP): A Scoping Review

Felipe Agudelo-Hernández Felipe Agudelo-Hernández 1,2*Ana Belén Giraldo-Álvarez Ana Belén Giraldo-Álvarez 1Eduardo Marulanda-López Eduardo Marulanda-López 2
  • 1 University of Los Andes, Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
  • 2 University of Manizales, Manizales, Caldas, Colombia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objectives: To identify implementation variables and justify the use of the community component of the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP). Methods: The search was carried out in Cochrane, PubMed, Emerald, Scopus, Scielo, Redalyc and Google Scholar databases. Studies that analyzed the implementation of the community component of mhGAP were included, excluding those focused solely on the clinical component of mhGAP. Results: Out of the 726 records initially identified, only four met the inclusion criteria. The findings reveal that the evaluation of the community component of mhGAP has primarily been conducted in conjunction with other global and community mental health strategies, as part of multimodal approaches. Factors are recognized as key barriers and facilitators for the successful implementation of the program. Conclusions: The community component of mhGAP presents itself as a promising proposal to strengthen community-based mental health strategies. However, there is an urgent need to generate more evidence on the implementation of these strategies, particularly in terms of resource availability, long-term sustainability, and outcome monitoring.

    Keywords: Community Mental Health Services, Mental Health Recovery, Community participation, Implementation Science, Psychosocial Support Systems

    Received: 13 Jul 2024; Accepted: 11 Feb 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Agudelo-Hernández, Giraldo-Álvarez and Marulanda-López. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Felipe Agudelo-Hernández, University of Los Andes, Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.