Kenya to conduct first national mental health survey under new advisory committee

Kenya will for the first time conduct a nationwide survey on mental health, with a newly formed advisory committee tasked to guide the process and ensure its success.

The Ministry of Health officially inaugurated the National Advisory Committee for the National Baseline Mental Health Survey on Tuesday. The survey is expected to provide Kenya with its first nationally representative data on mental health conditions.

The committee will be chaired by Health Director General Patrick Amoth and was represented at the launch by Dr Bashir Issak, Head of Family Health. The advisory team will provide oversight and strategic direction to the exercise.

Bashir said the survey is a major step in addressing gaps identified by the 2020 Taskforce on Mental Health, which highlighted the lack of comprehensive national statistics on prevalence, treatment gaps and socio-economic determinants.

“Kenya has for years lacked nationally representative data on mental health. This survey will provide critical insights into the prevalence of conditions, the treatment gaps, and the socio-economic determinants of mental health,” he said.

Amoth acknowledged that Kenya already has a mental health policy, but its implementation has been slowed down by limited resources. He referred to the 2021 Mental Health Investment Case, which had stressed the need for targeted funding to expand services and close the treatment gap.

“This survey will generate national estimates, establish a baseline for monitoring progress, and guide decision-making on policy, resource allocation, and service delivery,” he said.

The 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) was the first Demographic and Health Survey in Africa to include a mental health diagnosis module, assessing socio-economic and health conditions associated with depression in Kenya.

The analysis, which applied a two-stage cluster sampling method to ensure national representation, examined age, gender, education level, marital status, household wealth index, and rural–urban residence. It also assessed chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and heart and lung diseases in relation to self-reported depression, using logistic regression analysis.

Out of 31,354 men and women surveyed, the prevalence of self-reported depression was found to be 2.6 per cent. Results showed that being a middle-income earner increased the likelihood of depression. Hypertension, diabetes, heart disease and lung disease were also strongly associated with higher rates of depression.

For instance, being hypertensive increased the likelihood of depression by more than three times, while heart and lung conditions increased the likelihood more than threefold as well.

The study noted that although the proportion of participants who self-reported depression was low, there were considerable variations across counties and among different socio-demographic groups.

Researchers recommended that mental health interventions should particularly target individuals with chronic illnesses and those in the middle economic class, who were shown to be disproportionately affected by depression.

Globally, depression is one of the leading causes of mental health distress and dysfunction. Medical experts describe it as a condition that affects cognition, mood and behaviour, with causes ranging from brain chemistry and genetics to exposure to adverse life events.

Kenya ranks among the top five African countries most affected by depression. Estimates suggest the country has about 1.9 million cases, following South Africa (2.4 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (2.9 million), Ethiopia (4.5 million) and Nigeria (7.1 million).

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Locally, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights has reported that between 25 and 40 per cent of outpatients and inpatients in the country’s health facilities suffer from mental illnesses, most of which are diagnosed as depression, stress or anxiety disorders.