TYPE Study Protocol PUBLISHED 20 December 2022 DOI 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1083042 OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Mohammadreza Shalbafan, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Iran REVIEWED BY Lingyun Zeng, Shenzhen Kangning Hospital, China Muhammed Fatih Önsüz, Eski¸ sehir Osmangazi University, Turkey Pamela Vaccari Jimenez, University of Concepción, Chile *CORRESPONDENCE Jaime C. Sapag jsapag@uc.cl SPECIALTY SECTION This article was submitted to Public Mental Health, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry RECEIVED 28 October 2022 ACCEPTED 21 November 2022 PUBLISHED 20 December 2022 CITATION Sapag JC, Traub C, Velasco PR, Arratia T, Alvarado R, Aracena M, Poblete FC, Villarroel L, Bravo P, Álvarez-Huenchulaf C, Jofré Escalona A, Vargas-Malebrán N, Bobbili S, Bustamante I, Khenti A and Corrigan PW (2022) Reducing stigma toward mental illness and substance use issues in primary health care in Chile: Protocol of a cluster controlled trial study. Front. Psychiatry 13:1083042. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1083042 COPYRIGHT © 2022 Sapag, Traub, Velasco, Arratia, Alvarado, Aracena, Poblete, Villarroel, Bravo, Álvarez-Huenchulaf, Jofré Escalona, Vargas-Malebrán, Bobbili, Bustamante, Khenti and Corrigan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Reducing stigma toward mental illness and substance use issues in primary health care in Chile: Protocol of a cluster controlled trial study Jaime C. Sapag 1,2,3,4 *, Carolina Traub 1 , Paola R. Velasco 1 , Tamara Arratia 1 , Rubén Alvarado 5,6 , Marcela Aracena 7 , Fernando C. Poblete 1 , Luis Villarroel 1 , Paulina Bravo 8 , Cinthia Álvarez-Huenchulaf 1 , Ana Jofré Escalona 1 , Nelson Vargas-Malebrán 1 , Sireesha Bobbili 3,4 , Inés Bustamante 9 , Akwatu Khenti 3,4 and Patrick W. Corrigan 10 1 Departamento de Salud Pública, División de Salud Pública y Medicina Familiar, Escuela de Medicina, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile, 2 Departamento de Medicina Familiar, División de Salud Pública y Medicina Familiar, Escuela de Medicina, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile, 3 Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, 4 Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON, Canada, 5 Departamento de Salud Pública, Escuela de Medicina, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile, 6 Programa de Salud Mental, Escuela de Salud Pública, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile, 7 Escuela de Psicología, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile, 8 Escuela de Enfermería, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile, 9 Facultad de Salud Pública y Administración, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru, 10 Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, United States Background: Chile is implementing a Community Mental Health Model with a strong role of primary health care (PHC). PHC has great potential to early detection and provision of accessible and coordinated services to people who present mental illness and/or substance use issues (MISUI). However, stigma toward people with MISUI among PHC professionals is a significant barrier to accessing good quality of care. A wealth of literature supports the importance of reducing stigma for this population. The main goal of this research project is to determine the effectiveness of a comprehensive anti-stigma intervention in reducing stigmatizing attitudes and behaviors among PHC providers toward individuals with MISUI in the Chilean context, using Centros de Salud Familiar (CESFAMs) as the point of intervention. Methods: The intervention is based on an initiative that was previously developed in Canada and then also pilot-tested in Lima, Peru, with the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (Ontario, Canada). The model will be culturally adapted with CESFAM PHC provider and user inputs to be relevant and valid to Chile. The 18-month intervention includes five (5) components that are simultaneously implemented in CESFAMs: (1) Develop a Team of Local Champions in each intervention CESFAM, comprising PHC providers and users; (2) Analysis of Internal CESFAM Policies, Procedures, and Protocols to determine areas of improvement in service delivery for individuals with Frontiers in Psychiatry 01 frontiersin.org