World Health organization guidelines for management of acute stress, PTSD, and bereavement: key challenges on the road ahead

Wietse A Tol; Corrado Barbui; Jonathan Bisson; Judith Cohen; Zeinab Hijazi; Lynne Jones; Joop T V M de Jong; Nicola Magrini; Olayinka Omigbodun; Soraya Seedat; Derrick Silove; Renato Souza; Athula Sumathipala; Lakshmi Vijayakumar; Inka Weissbecker; Douglas Zatzick; Mark van Ommeren

doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001769

World Health organization guidelines for management of acute stress, PTSD, and bereavement: key challenges on the road ahead

PLoS Med. 2014 Dec 16;11(12):e1001769. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001769. eCollection 2014 Dec.

Authors

Wietse A Tol¹, Corrado Barbui², Jonathan Bisson³, Judith Cohen⁴, Zeinab Hijazi⁵, Lynne Jones⁶, Joop T V M de Jong⁷, Nicola Magrini⁸, Olayinka Omigbodun⁹, Soraya Seedat¹⁰, Derrick Silove¹¹, Renato Souza¹², Athula Sumathipala¹³, Lakshmi Vijayakumar¹⁴, Inka Weissbecker⁵, Douglas Zatzick¹⁵, Mark van Ommeren¹⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
² WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health, University of Verona, Verona, Italy.
³ Institute of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, Allegheny General Hospital, Drexel University College of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
⁵ International Medical Corps, Santa Monica, California, and Washington, D.C., United States of America.
⁶ FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
⁷ Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
⁸ WHO Collaborating Centre for Evidence-based Research Synthesis and Guideline Development, Bologna, Italy.
⁹ Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan and University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria.
¹⁰ Department of Psychiatry, Stellenbosch University, Tygerberg, South Africa.
¹¹ School of Psychiatry and Ingham Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
¹² Institute of Psychiatry, Hospital das Clínicas, University of São Paulo Medical School, São Paulo, Brazil.
¹³ Research Institute for Primary Care and Health Sciences, Faculty of Health, Keele University, Keele, United Kingdom & Institute for Research and Development, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
¹⁴ SNEHA, Voluntary Health Services, Department of Psychiatry, Chennai, India.
¹⁵ Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, United States of America.
¹⁶ Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.

Abstract

Wietse Tol and colleagues discuss some of the key challenges for implementation of new WHO guidelines for stress-related mental health disorders in low- and middle-income countries. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Bereavement*
Disease Management
Humans
Mental Health / standards*
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic*
Stress, Psychological*
World Health Organization

Grants and funding

The World Health Organization and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees provided funding for the development of the guidelines. The authors are responsible for the views expressed in this article and, except for the specifically noted recommendations, they do not necessarily represent the decisions, policies, or views of WHO. No funding bodies had any role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.