Work

Task-Sharing and Stepped-Care Mental Health Services in Angolan Higher Education: A Multi-Site Implementation Protocol (ANGOSAP)

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Background: Higher education institutions in Angola face increasing demand for mental health and psychoeducational support in the context of limited specialist workforce and service capacity. ANGOSAP is an Erasmus+ - funded capacity-building initiative designed to establish sustainable, university-embedded Psychological Support Services across four Angolan universities and to strengthen early access to support within higher education settings. Methods: This Study describes the rationale, service model, and early implementation framework of ANGOSAP. The project uses a co-designed, stepped-care, task-sharing approach adapted to the context of each institution. Core components include campus-level standard operating procedures for intake, triage, risk assessment, safeguarding, and referral; competency-based training and supervision; student-facing psychoeducation, brief psychological interventions, and digital resources; formal referral pathways; and pragmatic monitoring. Early implementation success will be assessed using indicators: service reach, median waiting time from first contact to first appointment, first-appointment uptake, care-plan completion. Reliable clinical change monitored using PHQ-9, GAD-7, and WHO-5, alongside indicators of reach, access, safety, acceptability, and equity serious incidents, acceptability, and equity-stratified access and outcomes. Results: No primary clinical outcomes or human participant data are reported in this Study Protocol. Preliminary outputs include a defined implementation pathway for university-based services, a minimum dataset for routine monitoring, quality and safety procedures, equity-oriented performance dashboards, and a cross-site learning structure to support iterative service refinement. These elements are intended to enable early-access, context-sensitive care while generating practice-based evidence during phased implementation. Conclusions: ANGOSAP provides a structured protocol to test the feasibility of university-based psychological and psychoeducational support in Angola. By combining capacity building, supervision, referral integration, and routine monitoring, the project will generate practice-based evidence on reach, access, safety, acceptability, and early clinical change. These findings will inform service refinement across participating institutions and provide a roadmap for engaging national stakeholders, including health and higher education authorities, in future policy development.

Source: Open Research Europe

DOI: 10.12688/openreseurope.23442.2