scholarly journals Welcome to the final issue of the Journal for 2021

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Neale Fong
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Health System ◽  
The Past ◽  
Caring Leadership

It has been another extraordinary year for the health system and its leaders across the globe as the pandemic wrought unplanned and unplotted transformation. It seems apparent that the pace of change is with us to stay and casting forward in 2022, we can expect more challenges as we grapple with some of the unknowns of living with Covid. As health leaders, managers and executives, we are extremely aware that we step forward to “living with COVID” with an exhausted workforce, a potential tsunami of demand on our own mental health care capabilities, and indeed the demand from all those previously usual activities that have been left untended in the past two years. It is in these times that we must lead with compassion – the need for empathic, caring leadership has never been greater. I hope, too, that we understand that we are not alone and that it is the support of our peers that will make this journey forward a little bit easier.

Lessons learned from the past on mental health care of refugee children in Serbia

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 669-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milica Pejovic Milovancevic ◽  
Veronika Ispanovic ◽  
Dusko Stupar
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Refugee Children ◽  
The Past

Mental health care in Madrid

2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (S2) ◽  
pp. s279-s284 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Ferre Navarete ◽  
I. Palanca
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Health System ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Health Plan ◽  
Mental Health System ◽  
Terrorist Attack

AbstractAimTo describe principles and characteristics of mental health care in Madrid.MethodBased on existing data, service provision, number of professionals working in services, funding arrangements, pathways intocare, user/carer involvement and specific issues are reported.ResultsIn Madrid, mental health services are organized into 11 zones/areas, divided into 36 districts, where there is a mental healthoutpatient service with a multi-disciplinary team. Home treatment and psychosocial rehabilitation services have been developed. Specialist programmes exist for vulnerable client groups, including Children and Adolescents, Addiction/Alcohol and Older People. The Madrid Mental Health Plan (2003–2008) is regarded as the key driver in implementing service improvement and increased mental health and well-being in Madrid. It has a meant global budget increase of more than 10% for mental health services. Results of the first 2 years are: an increase in mental health staff employed (17%), four new hospitalization units, 50% increase in places for children and adolescents Day Hospitals, 62 new beds in long care residential units, development of specific programmes for the homeless and gender-based violence, a significant investment in information systems (450 new computers) and development of best practice and operational guidelines. Mental health system was put to the test with Madrid's March 11th terrorist attack. A Special Mental Health Plan for Affected people was developed.DiscussionUnlike some European countries, public mental health service is the main heath care provider. There are no voluntary agenciescollaborating with mental health care. Continuity of care and coordination between all mental health resources is essential in service delivery. Increased demand of care for minor psychiatric disorders, children and adolescent mental health care, and implementation of rehabilitation and residential facilities for chronic patients are outstanding challenges similar to those in other European capitals. Overall, the mental health system had successfully coped with last year's increased care demand after March 11th terrorist attack in Madrid.

Mental Health System Historians: Adults with Schizophrenia Describe Changes in Community Mental Health Care Over Time

2014 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine H. Stein ◽  
Jaclyn E. Leith ◽  
Lawrence A. Osborn ◽  
Sarah Greenberg ◽  
Catherine E. Petrowski ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Community Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Health System ◽  
Mental Health System ◽  
Community Mental Health Care ◽  
Over Time

Strengthening mental health services in Sierra Leone: perspectives from within the health system

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 657-664
Author(s):  
Jessica J Fitts ◽  
Fatmata Gegbe ◽  
Mark S Aber ◽  
Daniel Kaitibi ◽  
Musa Aziz Yokie
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Health System ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Health Initiatives

Abstract Though mental and substance use disorders are a leading cause of disability worldwide, mental health systems are vastly under-resourced in most low- and middle-income countries and the majority of people with serious mental health needs receives no formal treatment. Despite international calls for the integration of mental health into routine care, availability of outpatient mental health services and integration of mental health into the broader healthcare system remain weak in many countries. Efforts to strengthen mental healthcare systems must be informed by the local context, with attention to key health system components. The current study is a qualitative analysis of stakeholder perspectives on mental health system strengthening in one low-income country, Sierra Leone. It utilizes locally grounded knowledge from frontline healthcare providers to identify constraints and opportunities for strengthening mental health care within each component of the health system. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 43 participants including doctors, nurses, community health workers, mental health advocates, mental health specialists, and traditional healers recruited from the Bo, Moyamba and Western Area Urban Districts. Interview transcripts were content-coded in NVivo using both a priori and emergent codes and aggregated into broader themes, utilizing the World Health Organization Health Systems Framework. Participants described an extremely limited system of mental health care, with constraints and obstacles within each health system component. Participants identified potential strategies to help overcome these constraints. Findings reinforce the importance of factors outside of the healthcare system that shape the implementation of mental health initiatives, including pervasive stigma towards mental illness, local conceptualizations of mental illness and an emphasis on traditional treatment approaches. Implications for mental health initiatives in Sierra Leone and other low-income countries include a need for investment in primary care clinics to support integrated mental health services and the importance of engaging communities to promote the utilization of mental health services.

High variability of the current mental health practices around the globe: Twenty days in the lives of psychiatrists and other mental health care professionals from all over the world

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Reinhard Heun ◽  
Jibril Ibrahim Moussa Handuleh ◽  
Juan Evangelista Tercero Gaitán Buitrago ◽  
Melvin S. Marsh ◽  
Vitalii Klymchuk ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Health Practices ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Mental Health Practices

AbstractIntroductionThe present is the future of the past, and the past of the future. This journal as well as this paper endeavour to document the lives and practices of psychiatrists and other mental health care professionals for the future mental health community and to help the clinicians of the future to understand the history and practice of psychiatry and mental health care in 2019/20. We, therefore, report the current days in the lives of psychiatrists and other mental health care professionals.Material and MethodsTo obtain reports of days in the lives of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, we published the request on eight occasions from May 2019 to May 2020. We invited the prospective respondents/participants to send a relevant report of their psychiatric practice in a day with a maximum word count of 750 words.ResultsWe received 20 reports of variable lengths from 10 countries from six continents, including from psychiatrists, psychiatrists in training, clinical psychologists and from medical students about their psychiatric training. The reports revealed a wide and highly variable range of psychiatric and mental health practices, experiences and expectations. Last but not least, the reports we received were informative and provided much information to reflect on.ConclusionsThere is a common strong commitment to support patients with mental health problems, but the ways this is achieved are so diverse that generalisations about a typical common practice seem impossible. Future studies should focus more systematically on the procedures and practices applied in helping patients with mental health problems in different countries and communities. This knowledge might eventually help identify the procedures and services that are most efficient and helpful in various clinical contexts.

Do we still need mental hospitals?

1997 ◽  
Vol 6 (S1) ◽  
pp. 29-48
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Burti
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Psychiatric Care ◽  
Multidisciplinary Teams ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mental Hospitals ◽  
Custodial Care

“The debate is over” claimed a heading in a newspaper on the 1991 Amsterdam WHO conference ‘Changing mental health care in the cities of Europe’: “After half a century of debate of the issue of deinstitutionalisation the question is not any more if we should close the large mental hospitals, but what follows the closure and how to develop adequate community mental health care which replaces the functions of the mental hospital” (Gersons & Burns, 1992).These ‘functions’ have actually secured the long-lasting success of the mental hospital which has been in the past and, to a certain extent, still is in a number of countries, the cornerstone of psychiatric care. It incorporates all the functions of a psychiatric system in a single, usually isolated facility, including crisis intervention, evaluation, treatment, aftercare, long-term custodial care, rehabilitation, etc. In order to phase down the mental hospital these functions have to be supplemented by newly established, discrete services disseminated in the community. The process is clearly a complex one, since it implies a transition from a system of care provided only in mental hospitals under medical direction, to one that is comprehensive in scope, community-orientated, and staffed by multidisciplinary teams.

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