NCT07339462

Feasibility and Acceptability of an Intervention to Support People With Severe Mental Illness in South Africa

Feasibility and Acceptability of Critical Time Intervention to Support People With Severe Mental Illness Following Post-acute Hospital Discharge in South Africa

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 86 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University of KwaZulu · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Despite commendable progress in developing mental health systems in low-and-middle income countries, critical gaps remain, particularly the development of community-based systems of support for people living with severe mental illness (SMIs). This application will pilot a co-developed health system strengthening intervention programme in a South African district in order to determine its feasibility, appropriateness and limited efficacy in reducing readmission following discharge from acute psychiatric hospitalization. By generating preliminary data on the real-world implementation of a co-developed programme in low-resource contexts in South Africa, this application seeks to build on an existing foundation of research partnerships and local government collaboration to develop a transitional support intervention that could yield significant and tangible impacts on people living with SMIs in low-resource communities.

Detailed description

The development of appropriate and effective community-based care for people living with severe mental illness (SMIs) continues to be a global challenge, especially in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs). A particularly damaging cycle emerges when people with SMIs are admitted to hospital for acute psychiatric treatment, discharged back into community settings without appropriate support, only to be readmitted again due to psychiatric relapse. This "revolving door" phenomenon is a multilevel challenge to mental health systems, including in countries such as South Africa, with little to no formal community-based support systems for people living with SMIs. Several innovative strategies have been developed to address hospital re-admission, while co-development approaches such as human-centred intervention development have shown much promise in generating improved outcomes. The proposed research project aims to explore the feasibility and limited efficacy of a co-developed health system strengthening intervention programme in a South African district in order to determine its feasibility, appropriateness and limited efficacy in reducing readmission following discharge from acute psychiatric hospitalization. Specifically, a multi-level helath system strengthening intervention programme has been co-developed, which include 1) the improvement of referral processes across healthcare facilties; 2) the implementation of a psychosocial rehabilitation programme across tertiary, secondary and primary healthcare facilities; 3) the implementation of clinical guidelines refresher training for clinicials on primary healthcare level; 4) the implementation of a structured outreach programme by community health workers following discharge; and 5) the implementation of a Household Champion programme to empower households for better support at home. This package will be piloted in a parallel arm feasibility trial in the uMgungundlovu District Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We will train registered councellors to deliver psychosocial rehabilitation on primary healthcare level in tandem with nursing staff, train community health workers to work with existing outreach teams to implement the Community Mental Health Education and Detection programme during routine household visits, and will recruit a training and quality improvement team to coordinate, support and mentor training and improvement for the referral pathway and clinician refresher training. Fourty-three people who have been admitted for acute psychiatric reasons will be recruited for each of the two arms. The intervention arm will receive the full intervention package, while the control arm will receive care as usual as well as improved referral and discharge readiness on hospital level. The primary aim is to determine whether enrollment to the full intervention package will reduce the likelihood of people discharged from acute psychiatric hospitalization after 4 months, compared to those in the control group. Secondary measures include the effects of the intervention on service users (in terms of stigma, medication adherence, and recovery) after 4 months; and qualitative measures of feasibility in terms of the acceptability, demand, implementation, practicality, adaptation, integration, and potential for expansion of the intervention. Taken together, the quantitative and qualitative data will provide an indication of the feasibility and limited efficacy of the co-developed intervention package.

Conditions

• Mental Disorders, Severe

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Multilevel psychosocial support for people living with severe mental illness and their caregivers	The intervention is the product of a human-centred design process, involving a range of health system actors. The intervention entails 1) A revised, integrated referral pathway across tertiary, secondary and primary levels of care; 2) A psychosocial rehabilitation programme, introduced to multidisciplinary teams and nursing staff in specialist, regional and district hospitals; 3) A psychosocial rehabilitation programme, introduced to registered counsellors in PHC facilities; 4) Refresher training on management of severe mental health conditions for physicians and nurses in PHC facilities; 5) A community mental health education and detection toolkit and associated training package for community health worker outreach teams; 6) The Household Champion programme, a psychoeducation, empowerment and support programme to improve caregiver capacity for care.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-08-01
• Primary completion: 2026-06-01
• Completion: 2026-08-31
• First posted: 2026-01-14
• Last updated: 2026-01-14

Locations

1 site across 1 country: South Africa