Etheldreda Nakimuli-Mpungu
Ugandan Mental health programme developer
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Through Psychotherapy
Education
Nakimuli-Mpungu graduated in medicine from Makerere University's Faculty of Health Sciences in 1998. When she announced the news to her mother, her mother replied: "OK, good. But you know it's not good just to be a doctor, you go to some doctors and they don't make you feel better. I want you to be one of the doctors who really do good for people". Her career began in Kampala, where she worked first in a surgical department, then with children. From 2001 to 2012 she worked in psychiatric care at Butabika National Referral Mental Hospital. In 2006, she is also resumed graduate studies in psychiatry at Makerere University's College of Health Sciences and was awarded an MA. In 2012, she was awarded a doctorate in psychiatric epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University.
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Career
While working at Butabika Hospital, Nakimuli-Mpungu noticed a large number of HIV/AIDS patients were being admitted with serious mental health problems. Nakimuli-Mpungu commented that "at the time, nobody knew how to help them or what to do with them", specifying that "there was this idea in the medical community that these people were beyond all help". She undertook her own observations, which confirmed the HIV-positive individuals are more likely to be diagnosed with depression, in part due to the stigma surrounding the disease. One symptom of depression is neglect of self-care, which means for some HIV patients, they are less likely to take their medication. Nakimuli-Mpungu felt that there could be a dual approach to the two diseases, but there was nothing published in scientific literature at the time, which could serve as a basis for implementation of such a treatment.
Nakimuli-Mpungu then launched a research programme to explore the possibilities of a treatment that addressed both issues. Since most medical centres in Uganda lack funding, as well as training for and staff to work on mental health care, Nakimuli-Mpungu focussed on the potential of group therapy as a treatment. Her first pilot recruited 150 people with HIV and depression. The recruits were split into two groups: one group received Nakimuli-Mpungu's group therapy sessions, the other standard HIV education sessions at a clinic. Whilst over time all patients depression decreased, significantly the group therapy's trend was a continuation of decrease of depression even after the sessions ceased.
This initial study led to a larger programme, which began in 2016. In this iteration, 1140 patients were treated at more than 40 health centres across northern Uganda. The participants were again split into two: one half received "culturally appropriate psychotherapy", the others received general HIV education. The treatments this time were provided by trained, non-professional healthcare workers over a course of eight weeks. The group that received psychotherapy showed less incidences of major depression than the other group, reduced symptoms of PTSD, greater adherence to medication courses, lower rates of alcohol abuse, amongst other outcomes. Positive affects were greatest amongst male patients.
As of 2020 she is a professor, researcher, epidemiologist and psychiatrist at the Department of Psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine, Makerere University.
Awards
- The International ASTRAZENECA/APIRE Young Minds in Psychiatry Award, 2005.
- The International Fulbright Science & Technology Award, 2007.
- Presidential National Independence Medal of Honor, Uganda, 2016.
- Elsevier Foundation Award for Early Career Women Scientists in the Developing World in Biological Sciences, 2016.
- BBC's annual most influential 100 Women list, 2020.