scholarly journals Community mental health care after self-harm: A retrospective cohort study

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (7) ◽  
pp. 727-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J Spittal ◽  
Fiona Shand ◽  
Helen Christensen ◽  
Lisa Brophy ◽  
Jane Pirkis

Objective: Presentation to hospital after self-harm is an opportunity to treat underlying mental health problems. We aimed to describe the pattern of mental health contacts following hospital admission focusing on those with and without recent contact with community mental health services (connected and unconnected patients). Methods: We undertook a data linkage study of all individuals admitted as a general or psychiatric inpatient to hospital after self-harm in New South Wales, Australia, between 2005 and 2011. We identified the proportion of admissions where the patient received subsequent in-person community mental health care within 30 days of discharge and the factors associated with receipt of that care. Results: A total of 42,353 individuals were admitted to hospital for self-harm. In 41% of admissions, the patient had contact with a community mental health service after discharge. Patients connected with community mental health services had 5.33 (95% confidence interval = [5.09, 5.59]) times higher odds of follow-up care than unconnected patients. Other factors, such as increasing age and treatment as a psychiatric inpatient, were associated with lower odds of follow-up community care. Conclusion: Our study suggests that full advantage is not being taken of the opportunity to provide comprehensive mental health care for people who self-harm once they have been discharged from the inpatient setting. This is particularly the case for those who have not previously received community mental health care. There appears to be scope for system-level improvement in the way in which those who are treated for self-harm are followed up in the community.

Author(s):  
Anthony J. O’Brien

Oceania is characterized by the diversity of countries and by highly variable provision of mental health services and community mental health care. Countries such as Australian and New Zealand have well-developed mental health services with a high level of provision, but many less developed countries lack mental health infrastructure. Some developing countries such as Samoa and Tonga have passed mental health legislation with provision for community treatment orders, but this legal measure is probably not a useful mechanism for advancing mental health care in developing countries. Instead, efforts to improve provision of care seem best directed to the primary care sector, and to the general health workforce, rather than to specialists. The UN CRPD offer extensions of human rights to people with mental illness and most countries in Oceania have signed it. However, the absence of a regional rights tribunal potentially limits the realization of those rights.


10.17816/cp78 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-80
Author(s):  
Mohamed Ali Ahmed ◽  
Suhaila Ali Ghuloum

Guided by international best practice and evidence-based medicine, the Qatar mental health service has undergone a major transformation in the last two decades, replacing the institution-based service with an accessible multidisciplinary community-based service. In this paper, we provide a brief historical background to mental health services in Qatar, and the progress and development towards community-based mental health-care provision. We also explore the challenges facing this new model of care in Qatar including social and cultural sensitivities, and the various solutions adopted to overcome these challenges. We outline the comprehensive plans envisaged to further develop Qatar community mental health services, including the provision of accessible, integrated and multimodal mental health care within primary care settings.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Panagiotis Anargyros ◽  
Andreas Spyridon Lappas ◽  
Nikos Christodoulou

The current system of mental health care in Greece was created in accordance with the European Union and other international principles for mental health care provisions. Whereas Greece has been reforming its system of mental healthcare since at least the 80s, the main recent Greek effort has been Psychargos, a programme which began in 2000 and is still in effect. During the last two decades the Greek mental health system has been gradually shifting to a community-based system of care. Various different services with unique, yet intertwined, responsibilities have been introduced. The Greek system of mental health care still faces challenges, and the mental health reform is on-going. Future goals should be to improve the current framework of care, improve access to care by establishing fit-for-purpose community mental health services across the country, enhance multidisciplinary collaboration and patient involvement, integrate community mental health care with physical and social care services, and to ensure that service development is driven by need. Crucially, such aims demand the adoption of a culture of clinical governance and a consistent shift from traditional therapeutic care to person-centered psychiatry and preventive psychiatry.


2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 255-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Loos ◽  
Reinhold Kilian ◽  
Thomas Becker ◽  
Birgit Janssen ◽  
Harald Freyberger ◽  
...  

Objective: There are presently no instruments available in German language to assess the therapeutic relationship in psychiatric care. This study validates the German version of the Scale to Assess the Therapeutic Relationship in Community Mental Health Care (D-STAR). Method: 460 persons with severe mental illness and 154 clinicians who had participated in a multicenter RCT testing a discharge planning intervention completed the D-STAR. Psychometric properties were established via item analysis, analyses of missing values, internal consistency, and confirmatory factor analysis. Furthermore, convergent validity was scrutinized via calculating correlations of the D-STAR scales with two measures of treatment satisfaction. Results: As in the original English version, fit indices of a 3-factor model of the therapeutic relationship were only moderate. However, the feasibility and internal consistency of the D-STAR was good, and correlations with other measures suggested reasonable convergent validity. Conclusions: The psychometric properties of the D-STAR are acceptable. Its use can be recommended in German-speaking countries to assess the therapeutic relationship in both routine care and research.


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