Collaborative care for child and youth mental health problems in a middle-income country: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial training general practitioners

Background Child and youth mental health problems are leading causes of disability and particular problems in low- and middle-income countries where populations are young and child mental health services are in short supply. Collaborative care models that support primary care providers’ efforts to detect and treat child mental health problems offer one way to address this need. However, collaborative care for child mental health can be more complex than collaboration for adults for a number of reasons, including two-generational aspects of care, high degrees of co-morbidity, and variations in presentation across developmental stages.