Sudan's mental health service: challenges and future horizons
Open accessAbstract
Sudan is located to the south of Egypt, along the Red Sea.The country has a total area of 1 886 068 km 2 (728 215 square miles) and a population of just over 37 million and is classified by the World Bank as a low-income country.The adult literacy rate is 59%.The total annual expenditure on healthcare is 4.3% of the gross domestic product, but the proportion spent on mental healthcare is unknown.As of 2009, there were just 0.09 psychiatrists and 0.2 psychiatric nurses per 100 000 population, and 0.2 mental health beds per 10 000 people, of which 90% were hospital-based; the other 10% were community-based units run by physician assistants and psychologists.
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Sudan has limited and unequally distributed mental health services, with most psychiatric service centers in Khartoum and few psychiatrists working in rural areas.
“Most psychiatric service centers are in Khartoum, the capital, which has six psychiatric hospitals.”
From Exploring trauma and resilience of Urban South Sudanese refugees in Sudan (2024) · cites this paper as Osman 2019
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- Authors
- Osman, A. H. M., Bakhiet, A., Elmusharaf, S., Omer, A., & Abdelrahman, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Khartoum (SD)
- Venue
- BJPsych International
- Publisher
- Royal College of Psychiatrists
- Published
- 2019-09-11
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 17-19
- ISSN
- 2056-4740 (ISSN-L)
- 2058-6264
- PMC
- PMC8277530
- OpenAlex
- W2972789810
- Cited by
- 17
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 1.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- BJPsych International (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychiatric care and mental health services
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices
- Keywords
- mental health services, Sudan, mental health professionals, psychiatric hospital beds, mental health care costs, low-income countries, community mental health, physician assistants, mental health policy
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