The Primary Mental Health Project started in 1996 in Herat as a response to the high suicide rate among the women of the region.

At that time there was hardly any awareness and understanding of mental health issues neither in the society nor among government officials. Meanwhile the Afghan Ministry of Public Health has declared mental health care as one of its priorities.

Since the year 2006 PMHP has therefore systematically trained all primary health care providers at three levels (i.e. community health supervisors, nurses/midwives and doctors) to carry out mental health services in the health facilities throughout the Western Region. This large area consisting of the provinces Herat, Ghor, Badghis and Farah has a population of approximately 3 million.

Worldwide the Global Burden of Disease (i.e. disability-adjusted life years lost to illness) for neuro-psychiatric disorders is 12% (i.e. second in rank after infectious disorders) and we expect that this figure is even higher in Afghanistan. This means that mental disorders are among the most frequent causes for disability – a form of disability which cannot be seen easily from the outside. Especially depressions and anxiety disorders are very common in Afghanistan, partly an expression of the many years of severe stress the population has been under due to war with all its socio-economic consequences.

Besides enabling primary health care providers to carry out mental health services PMHP is also directly involved with mentally ill in running a busy psychiatric out-patient clinic.