Department of Psychiatry

Overview | Admission requirement | Courses | Academic Staff | Research activities | Community services | Facilities | Partnerships & Collaborations | Contacts

Overview

The Department of Psychiatry is a lively and friendly place with an excellent reputation in teaching, clinical practice, community projects and research. We are all united in working to raise awareness of the importance of mental health in the Ethiopian context and to improve the lives of people who are affected by mental illness.

It is estimated that around 1 in 6 Ethiopians will experience a mental illness at some point during their lifetime. The consequences can be extremely serious, leading to poverty, marginalization, abuse and even death. In other cases, mental illness causes relationships to suffer, educational performance to decline and for a person to fail to fulfill their potentials in life. Most people are unaware of the existence of effective treatments for mental illness or are unable to access treatments. Much of the Department’s work is focused on training mental health professionals and general health workers and supporting the expansion of mental health care so that everybody who needs mental health care will be able to have access to it.

The psychiatry residency program has led to a four-fold increase of psychiatrists from 12 in 2003 to 44 in 2013. Graduates from the psychiatry program now head up regional psychiatric units in Jimma, Mekele, Harar, Adama, Hawassa and Asela and the specialist psychiatric hospital in Addis Ababa (Amanuel Hospital).Within Addis Ababa, department psychiatrists are working in Amanuel Hospital as well as in psychiatric out-patient clinics in St Paul’s, Zewditu, Yekatit 12 and TikurAnbessa hospitals. The department is providing specialist services in child and adolescent psychiatry, addiction psychiatry, consultation-liaison psychiatry, neuropsychiatry, treatment-resistant mood disorders and rehabilitation psychiatry. Plans are in process to develop specializations in forensic psychiatry and perinatal psychiatry.

We have longstanding international collaborations with Canada, Sweden, the UK and the USA, which bring opportunities for faculty and students alike.

For more information on our research and community activities please see below.