scholarly journals PERCEPTIONS, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES TOWARD ELDERLY DEPRESSION AMONG PRIMARY HEALTH CARE PHYSICIANS, RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA 2021

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (08) ◽  
pp. 131-139
Author(s):  
Amal Ahmed Ghzwany ◽  
Ahmed Al Selihem ◽  
Abeer Sharahili ◽  
Alhanouf Alazmi ◽  
Esra Alhwsawi
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Primary Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Diagnosis And Treatment ◽  
Geriatric Depression ◽  
Depressed Patients ◽  
Primary Health ◽  
Primary Health Care Physicians

Background: Elderly people need care services in particular to maintain a high quality of life and health status. Managing the health needs of geriatric patients is part of the continuity of care family physicians provide to their patients. Aims: to assess physicians attitude, perception and practice toward depression in elderly in primary care sitting. Methodology: A cross- sectional study to assess primary health care physicians attitude and perceptions and practices toward depression in elderly patients in primary health care centers of King Saud medical city in Riyadh, kingdom of Saudi Arabia using self-administrated questionnaire Results: We received 210 responses to our questionnaire with response rate of 100 % where 51 % of them were females. Furthermore, 37 % of them have experience in PHC less than 5 years while 32 % have experience for more than 10 years. PHC physicians routinely screen for sleep disturbance (79 %), loss of interest or pleasure (79 %), sad mood (72 %), and decreased energy (63 %) in order to diagnosis of depression. Moreover, we found that 56 % of physicians would use clinical guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of geriatric depression where PHQ-9 was the most reported used tool (28 %) followed by geriatric depression scales (24%). Moreover, 71 % of physicians would refer patients with depression to psychiatry and 65 % to CBT instead to prescribe medications including SNRI (29 %), TCA (17 %) and SSRI (2 %). Moreover, the main barriers to adequate diagnosis and treatment of elderly depressed patients were rejection of patients to treatment (22 % of them indicated it as major problem) and difficulty for access to mental health care in our community (19 % of them indicated it as major problem). Conclusion: we found that most of physicians in Riyadh show high positive attitude toward depression of elderly however, there is some limitations in knowledge about symptoms of depression and restriction to guideline. Main barriers to adequate diagnosis and treatment of elderly depressed patients were rejection of patients to treatment and difficulty for access to mental health care in our community.

Disaster Management in Rural and Remote Primary Health Care: A Scoping Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-369
Author(s):  
Katie A. Willson ◽  
Gerard J. FitzGerald ◽  
David Lim
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Primary Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Disaster Management ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Disaster Preparedness ◽  
Rural And Remote ◽  
Primary Health

AbstractObjective:This scoping review aims to map the roles of rural and remote primary health care professionals (PHCPs) during disasters.Introduction:Disasters can have catastrophic impacts on society and are broadly classified into natural events, man-made incidents, or a mixture of both. The PHCPs working in rural and remote communities face additional challenges when dealing with disasters and have significant roles during the Prevention, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery (PPRR) stages of disaster management.Methods:A Johanna Briggs Institute (JBI) scoping review methodology was utilized, and the search was conducted over seven electronic databases according to a priori protocol.Results:Forty-one papers were included and sixty-one roles were identified across the four stages of disaster management. The majority of disasters described within the literature were natural events and pandemics. Before a disaster occurs, PHCPs can build individual resilience through education. As recognized and respected leaders within their community, PHCPs are invaluable in assisting with disaster preparedness through being involved in organizations’ planning policies and contributing to natural disaster and pandemic surveillance. Key roles during the response stage include accommodating patient surge, triage, maintaining the health of the remaining population, instituting infection control, and ensuring a team-based approach to mental health care during the disaster. In the aftermath and recovery stage, rural and remote PHCPs provide long-term follow up, assisting patients in accessing post-disaster support including delivery of mental health care.Conclusion:Rural and remote PHCPs play significant roles within their community throughout the continuum of disaster management. As a consequence of their flexible scope of practice, PHCPs are well-placed to be involved during all stages of disaster, from building of community resilience and contributing to early alert of pandemics, to participating in the direct response when a disaster occurs and leading the way to recovery.

scholarly journals Barriers Facing Primary Health Care Physicians When Dealing with Emergency Cases in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Majed A. Aloufi ◽  
Marwan A. Bakarman
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Primary Health Care ◽  
Emergency Services ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Primary Health ◽  
Primary Health Care Centers ◽  
Primary Health Care Physicians ◽  
Health Care Centers

<p><strong>OBJECTIVES:</strong> To estimate the prevalence of emergency cases reporting to Primary Health Care centers (PHC), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and to explore the barriers facing PHC physicians when dealing with such emergency cases.<strong></strong></p><p><strong>METHODS:</strong> A cross-sectional analytic study, where all physicians working in the PHC of the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Jeddah; were invited to participate (n=247). The study period was from July 2013 till December 2013. Data were collected through two sources. 1- A self-administered questionnaire used to determine the physicians’ perceived competence when dealing with emergency cases. 2- A structured observation sheet used to evaluate availability of equipment, drugs, ambulances and other supporting facilities required to deal with emergency cases.</p><p><strong>RESULTS:</strong> The response rate was 83.4%. The physicians’ age ranged between 25 and 60 years with a mean ±SD of 34.4±7.5 years. Majority of them (83.5%) did not attend ATLS courses at all whereas 60.7% never attended ACLS courses. The majority (97.1%) had however attended BLS courses. Physicians in the age group 36-45 years, non-Saudi, those who had SBFM, those who reported experience in working in emergency departments and physicians who reported more working years in PHCCs (&gt;5 years) had a significant higher score of perceived level of competence in performing emergency skill scale than others (P&lt;0.05). The prevalence of emergency cases attending PHC in Jeddah (2013) was 5.2%.</p><p><strong>CONCLUSION:</strong> Emergency services at PHC in Jeddah are functioning reasonably well, but require fine tuning of services and an upgrade in their quality.</p>

scholarly journals Mental health in primary health care: professionals’ perceptions and patients’ levels of depression, anxiety and stress

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana Varela Madureira ◽  
Maria Cristina Quintas Antunes
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Primary Health Care ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Anxiety And Depression ◽  
Self Administration ◽  
Primary Health

Background: The integration of mental health in primary health care, throughout its various functional units and with effective articulation between primary health care and mental health services, has been considered an essential objective of the legislative documents produced in the last three decades in Portugal, among them the National Health Plan 2011-2016.Goals: This study aimed to inquire health professionals’ perceptions about mental health care provided by public primary health care units, namely their perceptions about the mental health of their patients. It also intended to explore the difficulties perceived by the health professionals in their daily activity about the mental health problems of their patients and about the need of clinical psychologists’ activity in the public primary health care.Methods: This is an observational cross-sectional study with two non-probabilistic samples: health professionals (doctors, nurses and psychologists) and patients from two public health care units. Health professionals were interviewed (individual structured face-to-face interviews) about their perceptions of needs for improving their capacity to provide mental healthcare and about patients’ mental health conditions. Patients responded (by self-administration) to the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), providing a characterization of patients’ stress, anxiety and symptoms of depression.Results: Health professionals in their daily practice often identify in their patients symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression (most particularly in adults),. Several issues were identified as problematic, such as: poor access of the referral system for psychiatric and clinical psychological specialized care, insufficient number of health professionals, particularly of psychologists, and lack of appropriate mental health care specialization. The results also revealed relevant levels of stress, anxiety and depression in primary health care patients (both genders), which seem to increase with age. Discussion: Difficulties identified by health professionals may relate to the centralisation of resources, resistance to change from human resources management, lack of consensus among the various decision groups linked to mental health and, at institutional level, insufficient and inadequate funding. These factors may contribute to a failure in early diagnosis of symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. It is expected that articulation between primary health services and differentiated health services will improve, with improvement in teamwork among professionals and increase of the quality of life of users, satisfaction with work, from health professionals,  and reduction of health costs.

Expanding the Role of Primary Health Care in the Provision of Mental Health Services to the Population of the Kyrgyz Republic

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. S606-S606
Author(s):  
T. Galako
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Primary Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Kyrgyz Republic ◽  
Family Doctors ◽  
Primary Health

Providing comprehensive, integrated services in the field of mental health in primary health care (PHC) is a component of the state mental health program for the population of the Kyrgyz republic (KR) in the 2017–2030 biennium. In order to develop an action plan in this area a situational analysis of resources of psychiatric care at PHC level was carried out. There was revealed a significant deficit of specialists, such as family doctors, mental health care professionals. In spite of the need for 3,300 family doctors, only 1706 work, and 80% of them are of retirement age.The results of a research showed a low level of knowledge and skills of family physicians for the early detection of mental disorders and provision of appropriate medical care. There are also a limited number of psychiatrists, especially in rural regions (77% of the required quantity).During recent years, there have been implemented significant changes in the system of mental health services, aimed at improving its quality, the approach to the place of residence of the patient and the prevalence of psychosocial services.Since 2016 in 8 southern regions in the Kyrgyz Republic has been introduced a new model for the provision of comprehensive health care services. Piloting this model involves psychosocial rehabilitation of patients with mental disorders, the help of mobile teams at the place of patient residence, as well as psychoeducation, training, and support to family doctors. These and other measures will help to optimise mental health care at PHC level.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.

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