A global evaluation published in BJPsych Open reports that the World Health Organization’s (WHO) QualityRights e-training is associated with significant reductions in negative attitudes toward people with mental health conditions and psychosocial, intellectual, and cognitive disabilities. The training was also linked to greater disapproval of coercive, involuntary, and non-person-centered care.
The findings suggest the training may be especially effective in low- and middle-income countries, where participants showed the largest shifts in attitudes.
The paper was authored by Michelle Funk, who heads the WHO’s Policy, Law and Human Rights Unit, together with more than two dozen colleagues from WHO regional and country offices. Their work builds on the QualityRights initiative, a program launched in 2012 to promote rights-based, recovery-oriented approaches in mental health systems worldwide.
The evaluation relied on a small, self-selected subset of participants and was conducted by WHO staff. This means the authors are invested in this training program working, which may bias the results towards a positive finding. Independent follow-up studies would be essential in establishing the usefulness of this training program.
The authors write:
“Our findings indicate that the e-training has a large, positive impact in changing attitudes toward persons with mental health conditions and psychosocial, intellectual and cognitive disabilities (with a 22.78% improvement in attitudes in the overall sample). This shift can contribute to reduced stigma and greater alignment with rights-based approaches. Notably, this effect seems to be more pronounced in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries (29.18 v. 20.58% improvement in attitudes, respectively).”
The findings build on Michelle Funk’s long-standing effort to shift the WHO away from a traditional biomedical approach and toward a rights-based paradigm. She has led the QualityRights initiative, which promotes recovery-oriented and community-based alternatives, and has been a central voice in the call for a paradigm shift in global mental health policy. In her role at the WHO, she has also spoken out against coercive practices and emphasized the importance of services that are grounded in dignity, inclusion, and human rights.
More recently, the WHO and the UN jointly issued guidance that framed forced treatment as a violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms. This training program can be seen as part of that broader effort to align mental health systems with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and to reduce the use of forced treatment worldwide.
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