Integrating Support for Caregiver Mental Health into Health and Social Systems

Ahun, M. N., & Tomiyoshi, T. E. T. (2026). Integrating support for caregiver mental health into health and social systems. The Lancet Global Health, 14(5), e675–e676. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2214-109x(26)00067-7

Abstract:

The transition to parenthood can be a joyful yet stressful time for caregivers. Supporting caregivers’ mental health during this period is thus vital not only for ensuring their own wellbeing, but also for promoting healthy child development and overall family functioning. There is clear and consistent evidence that poor caregiver mental health has negative long-term impacts on caregivers, their families, and society at large. Yet there remain important gaps in our understanding of effective intervention and service delivery models to prevent and treat caregiver mental disorders, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).

UNICEF’s Caring for the Caregiver (CFC) package is a prevention intervention designed to address this gap. Delivered by non-specialist frontline workers, CFC aims to prevent caregiver psychological distress and social isolation by targeting their emotional (ie, self-care, coping skills) and social (ie, family cohesion, conflict resolution) awareness. Stephanie Redinger and colleagues’ study in The Lancet Global Health provides the first evaluation of CFC’s impact on caregiver mental health, social support, and parenting stress in the first 5 years of life. 3 Working in partnership with UNICEF and ministries responsible for health, education, and social welfare, researchers led a non-randomised pre–post intervention evaluation in six LMICs: Bhutan, Brazil, Rwanda, Serbia, Sierra Leone, and Zambia. Frontline workers—ranging from lay counsellors to community health workers to nurses—delivered 1–2-h monthly home visits over the 3–6-month evaluation period, dependent on caregiver need, routine home visiting schedules, and time available for research. Across all study countries, the CFC package resulted in higher caregiver self-efficacy and social support, as well as lower depression, anxiety, and parenting stress compared with baseline levels. While findings should be interpreted cautiously given the methodological limitations of the study (eg, absence of control group), it is worth acknowledging the critical contributions of this
work and discussing its implications.