Melanie Amna Abas

Melanie Amna Abas is a British psychiatric epidemiologist who is Professor of Global Mental Health at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience. She is a consultant psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, co-director of the NIHR Global Health Research Group African Youth in Mind, and leads the National Institutes of Health TENDAI Clinical Trial.

Melanie Amna Abas
Alma materUniversity of Auckland
University of Birmingham
Scientific career
InstitutionsInstitute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience
ThesisSocio-economic deprivation and length of psychiatric inpatient stay (2003)

Early life and education

Amna Abas attended the University of Birmingham, where she studied medicine.[1] She moved to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for her graduate studies, earning a masters degree in epidemiology. Her doctoral research at the University of Auckland evaluated socio-economic deprivation and length of psychiatric inpatient stay.[2] Long stays in hospital are associated with a poor health outcome, and Amna Abas demonstrated that greater deprivation is associated with longer stays in hospital.[2]

Research and career

Amna Abas has dedicated her career to understanding depression amongst different demographic groups. Her early research explored the social causes of depression amongst Zimbabwean women.[3] She was the first to show how cross-cultural events could cause depression.[3] For example, she studied the effectiveness of the friendship bench mental health programme, and showed that co-morbid anxiety was a predictor of persistent depression.[4] She argued that the psychological treatments proposed for use in lower middle income country and resource-limited settings (e.g. problem solving and interpersonal therapy) do not target fear, avoidance and worry.[4][5] Amna Abas expanded her studies to other regions, including Thailand, Sri Lanka and Moldova.

At the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Amna Abas established a research group focused on scalable global mental health interventions.[6] It uses social science and cultural analysis to develop contextually appropriate interventions for low-income countries.[7] She has explored how behavioural interventions impact adherence with medical advice for conditions including HIV.[3][8][9][10]

Academic service

Amna Abas has focssed on capacity building amongst African researchers.[11] She has contributed to the US-African Medical Education Partnership Initiative, which provides training to early and mid-career researchers across Africa. She is the King's College London partner for the African Mental Health Research initiative.[8]

Selected publications

References
  1. London, King's College (2022-01-24). "Melanie Amna Abas". King's College London. Retrieved 2023-09-27.
  2. Abas, Melanie Amna (2003). Socio-economic deprivation and length of psychiatric inpatient stay (MD--Psychiatry thesis). ResearchSpace@Auckland.
  3. "Professor Melanie Abas". Centre for Global Mental Health. Retrieved 2023-09-27.
  4. Abas, Melanie Amna; Weiss, Helen Anne; Simms, Victoria; Verhey, Ruth; Rusakaniko, Simbarashe; Araya, Ricardo; Chibanda, Dixon (June 2020). "The effect of co-morbid anxiety on remission from depression for people participating in a randomised controlled trial of the Friendship Bench intervention in Zimbabwe". EClinicalMedicine. 23: 100333. doi:10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100333. ISSN 2589-5370. PMC 7329733. PMID 32637890.
  5. "The TENDAI Study - Task shifting to treat depression and HIV medication nonadherence in low resource settings". Centre for Global Mental Health. Retrieved 2023-09-27.
  6. London, King's College. "Professor Melanie Abas receives £2.75m in UKRI funding". King's College London. Retrieved 2023-09-27.
  7. Abas, Melanie; Mangezi, Walter; Nyamayaro, Primrose; Jopling, Rebecca; Bere, Tarisai; McKetchnie, Samantha M.; Goldsmith, Kimberley; Fitch, Calvin; Saruchera, Emily; Muronzie, Thabani; Gudyanga, Denford; Barrett, Barbara M.; Chibanda, Dixon; Hakim, James; Safren, Steven A. (5 December 2022). "Task-sharing with lay counsellors to deliver a stepped care intervention to improve depression, antiretroviral therapy adherence and viral suppression in people living with HIV: a study protocol for the TENDAI randomised controlled trial". BMJ open. 12 (12): e057844. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2021-057844. ISSN 2044-6055. PMC 9723911. PMID 36576191. Wikidata Q122871369.
  8. "Melanie Abas | AME". academicmedicaleducation.com. Retrieved 2023-09-27.
  9. London, King's College. "The TENDAI Study". King's College London. Retrieved 2023-09-27.
  10. "Task Shifting to Treat Depression and HIV Medication Nonadherence in Low Resource Settings - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov". clinicaltrials.gov. Retrieved 2023-09-27.
  11. "Researcher capacity building: Supporting the career development of emerging research leaders in Africa". 2022.
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