Task-Sharing and Stepped-Care Mental Health Services in Angolan Higher Education: A Multi-Site Implementation Protocol (ANGOSAP).

BACKGROUND

Higher education institutions in Angola face increasing demand for mental health and psychoeducational support in the context of limited specialist workforce and service capacity. ANGOSAP is an Erasmus+ - funded capacity-building initiative designed to establish sustainable, university-embedded Psychological Support Services across four Angolan universities and to strengthen early access to support within higher education settings.

METHODS

This Study describes the rationale, service model, and early implementation framework of ANGOSAP. The project uses a co-designed, stepped-care, task-sharing approach adapted to the context of each institution. Core components include campus-level standard operating procedures for intake, triage, risk assessment, safeguarding, and referral; competency-based training and supervision; student-facing psychoeducation, brief psychological interventions, and digital resources; formal referral pathways; and pragmatic monitoring. Early implementation success will be assessed using indicators: service reach, median waiting time from first contact to first appointment, first-appointment uptake, care-plan completion. Reliable clinical change monitored using PHQ-9, GAD-7, and WHO-5, alongside indicators of reach, access, safety, acceptability, and equity serious incidents, acceptability, and equity-stratified access and outcomes.

RESULTS

No primary clinical outcomes or human participant data are reported in this Study Protocol. Preliminary outputs include a defined implementation pathway for university-based services, a minimum dataset for routine monitoring, quality and safety procedures, equity-oriented performance dashboards, and a cross-site learning structure to support iterative service refinement. These elements are intended to enable early-access, context-sensitive care while generating practice-based evidence during phased implementation.

CONCLUSIONS

ANGOSAP provides a structured protocol to test the feasibility of university-based psychological and psychoeducational support in Angola. By combining capacity building, supervision, referral integration, and routine monitoring, the project will generate practice-based evidence on reach, access, safety, acceptability, and early clinical change. These findings will inform service refinement across participating institutions and provide a roadmap for engaging national stakeholders, including health and higher education authorities, in future policy development.