Identifying Public Stakeholders Effective on Mental Health Promotion in Iran
Abstract Background: It is not always easy to put mental health on the agenda of sectors other than the health sector. However, it is now confirmed that mental health promotion policies need innovations beyond the scope of the health sector to be efficient. Thus, in this study, an attempt was made to identify the most effective stakeholders of the public sector in the field of mental health promotion in Iran to help the policy-makers of said sector and to encourage the inter-sectoral cooperation and further involvement of these effective sectors in mental health promotion plans.Methods: This was a mixed-methods study. From the data of the first step (literature review and a survey involving professors of relevant disciplines), the names of government agencies related to the domain of mental health were extracted. In the second step, a checklist was developed, the horizontal axis of which was the relevant organizations and the vertical axis was the social risk factors effective on mental health promotion. The data of this step were analyzed by the simple additive weighting method. In the final step, a table was plotted in the form of institutional mapping in order to summarize the organizations affecting each risk factor.Results: The Islamic Consultative Assembly, the Ministry of Interior, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, and the Ministry of Education were identified as five organizations with the greatest impacts on the social determinants of mental health promotion in Iran. Conclusions: Significant impacts can be exerted by institutions such as the Islamic Consultative Assembly (as the legislator), the Ministry of Interior and its subsidiary entities such as municipalities and governors (as the administrators of homeland security and support for safe and appropriate urban and local facilities), the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (as the national media), the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare (as the institution in charge of employment, job security, and social welfare), and the Ministry of Education (as the educational institution of the country).