Training in mental health in psychology, social work, medicine, nursing and occupational therapy in Colombia

Abstract

This article presents the results of a research that aimed at analyzing the mental health component present in the curriculum of the Psychology, Social Work, Medicine, Nursing and Occupational Therapy university programs in Colombia, in 2015. It is a descriptive qualitative study, for which documentary sources were used such as the curriculum of the programs and the descriptive information offered on their web pages, and a discussion group with representatives of the disciplines in question. A total of 321 university programs that by 2015 were active in the National Information System of Higher Education participated in the study. It was found that training in mental health is not a topic of explicit interest in curricular training plans, thus constituting a content addressed within other more general topics, which allows concluding that the challenges for training in mental health inferred from the Colombian Mental Health Law, are not sufficiently spread.