University of Cape Town

Bulelwa Mtukushe is an AMARI MPhil alumni from South Africa. She did her Master of Philosophy in Public Mental Health with the University of Cape Town (UCT). Bulelwa obtained a BA Honours in Social Work, BA Honours in Psychology, Certificate in Project Management and a Postgraduate Diploma in Monitoring and Evaluation before going on to work in the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at UCT. She has been working in the research field since 2011. She started off as a Research assistant and currently she is a Project coordinator.

Bulelwa’s main research interests are in the areas of HIV, mental health, ART Adherence and substance use/abuse. She has facilitated interventions (randomised controlled trials) aimed at prevention of HIV, depression and substance use by providing motivational interviewing and problem solving therapy. She also has extensive experience in conducting in-depth interviews and surveys aimed at developing future interventions for people living with HIV.

The main focus of her MPhil research was to describe the common mental health disorders and factors associated with common mental health disorders among adolescents accessing HIV treatment at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town.