Peer Support Programme for Prisoners with mental disorders

Phase 3

Not yet recruiting

Brief Summary: There is a need to develop a model where peers and prison staff can be used as resources for identifying and providing supportive services to prisoners with common mental health and addiction. The process of development would include Systematic review of peer-support interventions in the prison to understand the models used across the world in the area of prisonerâ€™s mental health. Further key informant interviews with mental health professionals (n= 3), prison officials (n = 3) and the forensic psychiatry team (n = 2) would be conducted to formulate a programme of conducting a peer support programme for prisoners with common mental health disorder and substance use in the Central Jail at Bengaluru, India. The peer support programme developed for feasibility testing would be in three phases. Phase1: Training peers (convicted prisoners) and staff of prison in mental health promotion, common mental health problems and substance use, identification of persons with common mental health problems, basic supportive skills and methods of referral. Phase 2: Conducting mental health promotion in different barracks in the prison by peers and staff. Phase 3: Identification and provision of mental health services to prisoners with 6 months follow up to assess, number of cases identified, number people referred, improvement in clientsâ€™ symptoms, coping and wellbeing, satisfaction and challenges of the trainers and the end users.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria

1.Male prisoners who have been convicted for a minimum of 6 months or longer 2.Age of the person between 18-60 years 3.The prisoners who have been identified as volunteers for various prison activities and willingness to provide peer support interviewed by the researcher as appropriate for the training.
4.Understand and speak fluently in Kannada or English language 5.
Education of 8th standard and above and should have the ability to administer and document simple questionnaire.
Prison staff will include police constables, vocational trainers, medical staff.

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Number of cases identified	At the end of 6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Coping	Baseline and at the end of 6 months
Wellbeing	Baseline and at the end of 6 months
Knowledge about Mental illness	Baseline and at the end of 1 week
Attitude towards mental illness	Baseline and at the end of 1 week
Self esteem	Baseline and at the end of 1 week
Subjective level of satisfaction	At the end of 6 months

Locations (2): Central Prison, Bangalore
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Bangalore, KARNATAKA, India
National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences
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Bangalore, KARNATAKA, India
Central Prison, Bangalore
🇮🇳Bangalore, KARNATAKA, India
Sreekanth T
Principal investigator
8123573648
sreekanthnairgck@gmail.com