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The quality of life of a person with psychiatric disability is often determined by illness outcomes, personal journey of recovery, coping with the illness, family support, and successful integration into the community. Biopsychosocial factors either hamper or improve the quality of life of a person with psychiatric disability. To depict the usefulness of the biopsychosocial approach of assessment and intervention in improving the quality of life of a patient with mental illness in India. Case study method using the Biopsychosocial approach. Biopsychosocial approach of assessment and intervention helped in understanding the medical and psychosocial circumstances existing in the patient and his family. This helped in providing appropriate interventions such as psychoeducation about the illness, managing patient’s problematic behaviour, improving patient’s functionality, and ensuring regularity in follow up thus eventuating enhanced quality of life. Mental health professionals can use the biopsychosocial approach of assessment and intervention to gain a comprehensive understanding of the patient and his/her community needs and provide appropriate interventions to help improve the quality of life of a patient suffering from psychiatric disability.

Technology driven capacity building initiatives are the way to break the barrier of shortage of mental health human resources in India. This new path, while is a welcome step, comes with its own set of challenges. In one prototypic project that is being implemented in Ramanagara District of Karnataka, a south Indian state, we encountered many such issues. They ranged from issues related to availability of dedicated space to set up the hub-studio, inconsistent internet connectivity (particularly in remote areas) and inadequate digital literacy among the grassroot community health workers who hail from villages. This article summarises these challenges and ends by looking into ways and means of overcoming them.

Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANMs) and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) are well suited to cater to the mental health needs of the communities. Integrating primary mental health care into the general healthcare is one of the important objectives of the District Mental Health Program (DMHP) to reduce the treatment gap. As a part of an ICMR funded trial to evaluate the effectiveness of NIMHANS-ECHO blended training program, the ASHAs and ANMs were trained to identify and refer cases from the community. We aim to describe a series of cases identified by those workers from the community, highlighting their importance in our health care system.