Development and Implementation of Continuing Medical Education Course Curriculum in Mental Health Care for Primary Care Doctors in Ukraine Based on Doctors’ Needs, mhGAP Program and International Experience in Cooperation with American and EURACT Col

The russian-Ukrainian war leaded to rapidly increased problem in mental health of Ukrainian population. Ukrainian government and World Health Organization (WHO) started the implementation of WHO the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) action program and free package of mental health services by primary care doctors (PCDs). But PCDs still feel insufficiency competence that shows the need in additional education. The objective: to assess the challenges of PCDs in providing mental health services and their needs in additional education in mental health care, to develop and implement the curriculum of additional continuing medical education (CME) course according to needs as educational intervention based on mhGAP guidelines supplemented by international experience in American-Ukrainian cooperation Bridge USA and European Academy of Teachers in General Practice / Family Medicine (EURACT) mentorship with further assessment of the course. Materials and methods. The study consisted of few stages during 2024–2025: the survey among PCDs on the assessment their needs, the development of CME course curriculum and the implementation of the CME curriculum with further analysis of its relevance and quality. In total, 1,480 doctors were registered for attendance, from them 866 took participation in testing, survey and received certificates. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics, Statistica 12, Microsoft Excel 2010. Results. Despite the active state implementation of mental health services in primary care and mass training of medical personnel, the PCDs expressed their uncertainty and needs to enhance their mental health competence in additional educational courses. The developed CME course curriculum in mental health care for PCDs based on doctors’ needs, mhGAP guidelines and international experience in cooperation with American and EURACT colleagues became an educational intervention to resolve this problem. The evaluation of the I module of the course showed the good assimilation of knowledge and participants’ satisfaction of topics, duration, format, educational methods and content in 85–100% cases. Conclusions. The implementation of the I module of developed CME course demonstrated the high quality of the content, correspondence to doctors’ expectation and needs, that leaded to increase of commitment to implement the obtained knowledge and skills in practice and advanced competence in mental health care.