The Community Health Planning Systems and Non-Communicable Diseases project has rounded up a three-day intensive training for Clinical staff and Community Health Officers (CHOs).
The three-day training, was held at the PE Addah conference Hall of the Centre with the overall objective to empower CHOs to help in the quest for more explicit knowledge on treatments and management for chronic diseases such as hypertension (high blood pressure) and depression. This is largely informed by the increasing prevalence of these chronic diseases including diabetes around the world and in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality. It was jointly facilitated by Dr. Raymond Aborigo (Principal investigator) Dr. Michael Kaburise and Dr. Engelbert Nonterah who are both clinicians on the project, Ms. Irene Kuwolamo, (project coordinator) and Dr. David Heller, a co-investigator on the project from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Arnhold Institute for Global Health who joined via zoom.
The training was held from the 15th to 17th of March, 2022 where Community Health Officers and clinical staff of the various health facilities in the Kassena-Nankana Municipal and the Kassena Nankana West District were apprised on how to screen and enrol patients with hypertension and depression, understand the protocols for managing these conditions with medications, their side effects and how to initiate follow-ups on patients with these conditions.
The three-day training was preceded by another three-day training held from 6th to 8th of April, 2022.  Eight (8 ) participating Community health volunteers and four (4) community mental health officers from four (4) CHPS Zones  in  the Kassena-Nankana Municipality and the Kassena-Nankana West District took part in  familiarizing themselves with relevant concepts of the CHPs NCD study such as Depression, hypertension, proven ways of treating people living with these conditions (hypertension and depression), healthy hypertension and depression behaviors, methods of activating such behavioral patterns to inspire change and key communication strategies necessary for patient involvement. The CHVs were also trained on setting SMART goals for patients with hypertension and depression. The CHPS NCD study aims to assess the current functioning of CHPS in relation to depression care, identify potential solutions to depression care through CHPS, and design a pilot intervention using CHPS to manage hypertension and depression. These objectives when realized will contribute to a pool of knowledge on how to manage NCDs such as hypertension and depression through medications and change in unhealthy habits.