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Multicenter Study
. 2024 Mar 25;21(4):397.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph21040397.

Improving Retention in Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Interventions: An Analysis of Completion Rates across a Multi-Site Trial with Refugee, Migrant, and Host Communities in Latin America

Isabella Fernández Capriles  1 , Andrea Armijos  2 , Alejandra Angulo  3 , Matthew Schojan  4 , Milton L Wainberg  5 , Annie G Bonz  4 , Wietse A Tol  6   7 , M Claire Greene  1
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Improving Retention in Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Interventions: An Analysis of Completion Rates across a Multi-Site Trial with Refugee, Migrant, and Host Communities in Latin America

Isabella Fernández Capriles et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Research on mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) interventions within refugee and migrant communities has increasingly focused on evaluating implementation, including identifying strategies to promote retention in services. This study examines the relationship between participant characteristics, study setting, and reasons for intervention noncompletion using data from the Entre Nosotras feasibility trial, a community-based MHPSS intervention targeting refugee, migrant, and host community women in Ecuador and Panama that aimed to promote psychosocial wellbeing. Among 225 enrolled women, approximately half completed the intervention, with varying completion rates and reasons for nonattendance across study sites. Participants who were older, had migrated for family reasons, had spent more time in the study community, and were living in Panamá (vs. Ecuador) were more likely to complete the intervention. The findings suggest the need to adapt MHPSS interventions to consider the duration of access to the target population and explore different delivery modalities including the role of technology and cellular devices as reliable or unreliable source for engaging with participants. Engaging younger, newly arrived women is crucial, as they showed lower completion rates. Strategies such as consulting scheduling preferences, providing on-site childcare, and integrating MHPSS interventions with other programs could enhance intervention attendance.

Keywords: MHPSS interventions; completion rate; feasibility; refugee and migrant communities; retention.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The authors declare that this study received funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Health Evaluation and Applied Research Development (HEARD), Cooperative Agreement No. AID-OAA-A-17-00002. M.C.G. was supported by a Career Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (K01MH129572. The funder was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication.

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