Dr. Vjosa Berisha

Dr. Vjosa Berisha is a consultant psychiatrist at the University Clinical Centre of Kosovo (UCCK) in Pristina — Kosovo's national university hospital and the country's primary tertiary care and academic medical centre. With 13 years of psychiatric experience, she is one of Kosovo's most experienced psychiatrists, working within a healthcare system that is still building specialist capacity after the 1998–1999 conflict and subsequent reconstruction.

Kosovo's mental health landscape is shaped significantly by the legacy of the 1990s war and post-conflict trauma. A significant proportion of Kosovo's population experienced displacement, loss, violence, or other war-related trauma, and PTSD — including complex and chronic PTSD — remains a major clinical challenge. Dr. Berisha has developed specialist expertise in trauma-focused assessment and PTSD management, including collaboration with trauma therapists and NGOs working with survivors.

She trained in psychiatry at UCCK and completed advanced training in trauma psychiatry and PTSD management through programmes supported by international organisations including the International Medical Corps and the WHO-supported mental health reconstruction programme in Kosovo.

Dr. Berisha completed her medical degree at the University of Prishtina Faculty of Medicine. She undertook psychiatry residency at UCCK and obtained Kosovo specialist certification in psychiatry. She completed training in trauma-focused CBT (TF-CBT) through programmes supported by the International Medical Corps. She has attended WHO-sponsored mental health gap action programme (mhGAP) training and has completed child and adolescent psychiatry training modules through European-supported programmes. Her TF-CBT training is particularly significant in the Kosovo context, where post-conflict PTSD — stemming from the 1998-1999 war — remains prevalent in the population. She has also completed WHO mhGAP training as a trainer, enabling her to cascade mental health skills to non-specialist healthcare workers across Kosovo.

Dr. Berisha's clinical expertise spans adult and child psychiatry with particular depth in trauma and PTSD. For PTSD, she conducts comprehensive trauma assessment using standardised tools (PCL-5, CAPS), manages pharmacological treatment including SSRI and SNRI therapy, and coordinates trauma-focused psychotherapy (TF-CBT, EMDR where available). For complex and treatment-resistant PTSD, she provides specialist second opinions and multidisciplinary planning with psychologists and social workers.

For mood disorders and psychotic illness, she manages schizophrenia spectrum disorders, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder with evidence-based pharmacological approaches. Her child and adolescent psychiatry work includes childhood trauma reactions, depression, ADHD, and early-onset psychosis. She is involved in Kosovo's community mental health centre model, supporting decentralisation of psychiatric care beyond the hospital to primary and community health settings.

Dr. Berisha consults in Albanian, Serbian, English, and Turkish. UCCK serves Kosovo's predominantly Albanian-speaking population and ethnic minorities including Serbian, Turkish, Bosniak, and Roma communities. The multilingual capacity of the psychiatric team is important in Kosovo's ethnically complex context. For Kosovo diaspora in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and the UK — a large and economically significant diaspora — video psychiatric consultations in Albanian and English are available for mental health assessment, treatment planning, and medication review. She has experience providing cross-border consultations for diaspora patients who are transitioning back to Kosovo or who require culturally-informed psychiatric input that takes into account Kosovo's post-conflict social context.

Dr. Berisha received recognition from the Kosovo Medical Association for contributions to mental health service development in post-conflict Kosovo. She has collaborated with international organisations including the International Medical Corps, WHO, and multiple NGOs on PTSD management training for primary care workers across Kosovo. She has presented at World Psychiatric Association regional meetings on post-conflict PTSD burden in Kosovo and received the UCCK Psychiatry Department Award for her contributions to the development of trauma-informed psychiatric care. She was commended by IMC for her leadership in the national mhGAP training programme that trained over 200 primary care workers in mental health identification and referral.