Background: Community based rehabilitation (CBR) aims to promote the inclusion and participation of people with disabilities, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Yet people with psychosocial disabilities are often excluded from CBR programmes. The restrictive inclusion criteria used by previous reviews make it difficult to identify promising examples that could otherwise help to inform the uptake of CBR for people with psychosocial disabilities. We aim to address this gap using gold standard methods for the review and synthesis of grey literature on CBR for people with psychosocial disabilities in LMICs.
Methods: Our search strategy was developed in consultation with an expert advisory group and covered seven grey literature databases, two customised Google Advanced searches, 34 targeted websites and four key reports. A single reviewer screened the search results and extracted relevant data using a standardised format based on the World Health Organisation's CBR matrix. The included programmes were then checked by a second reviewer with experience in CBR to ensure they met the review's criteria. A narrative synthesis with summative content analysis was performed to synthesise the findings.
Results: The 23 CBR programmes identified for inclusion spanned 19 countries and were mostly located in either rural areas or urban areas where a large proportion of the population was living in poverty. 13 were classified as livelihood programmes, eight as empowerment programmes, seven as social programmes, seven as health programmes and four as education programmes. Only two addressed all five of these components. 12 of the included programmes reported challenges to implementation, with stigma and lack of resources emerging as two of the most prominent themes.
Conclusion: This grey literature review identified several CBR programmes and synthesised key learning that would have otherwise been missed by a more traditional review of the published literature. However, as evaluation by implementing organisations is not always conducted to a high standard, the quality of this evidence is generally poor. A flexible monitoring and evaluation framework for CBR programmes could help to reduce heterogeneity in terms of the quality and content of reporting.
Background: COVID-19 has had a significant impact on people's mental health and mental health services. During the first year of the pandemic, existing demand was not fully met while new demand was generated, resulting in large numbers of people requiring support. To support mental health services to recover without being overwhelmed, it was important to know where services will experience increased pressure, and what strategies could be implemented to mitigate this.
Methods: We implemented a computer simulation model of patient flow through an integrated mental health service in Southwest England covering General Practice (GP), community-based 'talking therapies' (IAPT), acute hospital care, and specialist care settings. The model was calibrated on data from 1 April 2019 to 1 April 2021. Model parameters included patient demand, service-level length of stay, and probabilities of transitioning to other care settings. We used the model to compare 'do nothing' (baseline) scenarios to 'what if' (mitigation) scenarios, including increasing capacity and reducing length of stay, for two future demand trajectories from 1 April 2021 onwards.
Results: The results from the simulation model suggest that, without mitigation, the impact of COVID-19 will be an increase in pressure on GP and specialist community based services by 50% and 50-100% respectively. Simulating the impact of possible mitigation strategies, results show that increasing capacity in lower-acuity services, such as GP, causes a shift in demand to other parts of the mental health system while decreasing length of stay in higher acuity services is insufficient to mitigate the impact of increased demand.
Conclusion: In capturing the interrelation of patient flow related dynamics between various mental health care settings, we demonstrate the value of computer simulation for assessing the impact of interventions on system flow.
Background: Mental health service providers are increasingly interested in patient perspectives. We examined rates and predictors of patient-reported satisfaction and perceived helpfulness in a cross-national general population survey of adults with 12-month DSM-IV disorders who saw a provider for help with their mental health.
Methods: Data were obtained from epidemiological surveys in the World Mental Health Survey Initiative. Respondents were asked about satisfaction with treatments received from up to 11 different types of providers (very satisfied, satisfied, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, very dissatisfied) and helpfulness of the provider (a lot, some, a little, not at all). We modelled predictors of satisfaction and helpfulness using a dataset of patient-provider observations (n = 5,248).
Results: Most treatment was provided by general medical providers (37.4%), psychiatrists (18.4%) and psychologists (12.7%). Most patients were satisfied or very satisfied (65.9-87.5%, across provider) and helped a lot or some (64.4-90.3%). Spiritual advisors and healers were most often rated satisfactory and helpful. Social workers in human services settings were rated lowest on both dimensions. Patients also reported comparatively low satisfaction with general medical doctors and psychiatrists/psychologists and found general medical doctors less helpful than other providers. Men and students reported lower levels of satisfaction than women and nonstudents. Respondents with high education reported higher satisfaction and helpfulness than those with lower education. Type of mental disorder was unrelated to satisfaction but in some cases (depression, bipolar spectrum disorder, social phobia) was associated with low perceived helpfulness. Insurance was unrelated to either satisfaction or perceived helpfulness but in some cases was associated with elevated perceived helpfulness for a given level of satisfaction.
Conclusions: Satisfaction with and perceived helpfulness of treatment varied as a function of type of provider, service setting, mental status, and socio-demographic variables. Invariably, caution is needed in combining data from multiple countries where there are cultural and service delivery variations. Even so, our findings underscore the utility of patient perspectives in treatment evaluation and may also be relevant in efforts to match patients to treatments.
Most children with developmental disabilities (DD), such as intellectual disabilities and autism, live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where services are usually limited. Various governmental, non-governmental and research organisations in LMICs have developed awareness-raising campaigns and training and education resources on DD in childhood relevant to LMICs. This study aimed to comprehensively search and review freely available materials in the academic and grey literature, aimed at awareness raising, training and education on DD among non-specialist professionals and community members in LMICs. We consulted 183 experts, conducted key-word searches in five academic databases, four grey-literature databases and seventeen customised Google search engines. Following initial screening, we manually searched relevant systematic reviews and lists of resources and conducted forwards and backwards citation checks of included articles. We identified 7327 articles and resources after deduplication. We then used a rigorous multi-step screening process to select 78 training resources on DD relevant to LMICs, of which 43 aimed at informing and/or raising awareness DD, 16 highlighted specific strategies for staff in health settings and 19 in education settings. Our mapping analysis revealed that a wealth of materials is available for both global and local use, including comics, children's books, flyers, posters, fact sheets, blogs, videos, websites pages, social media channels, handbooks and self-education guides, and training programmes or sessions. Twelve resources were developed for cross-continental or global use in LMICs, 19 were developed for and/or used in Africa, 23 in Asia, 24 in Latin America. Most resources were developed within the context where they were intended to be used. Identified gaps included a limited range of resources on intellectual disabilities, manuals for actively delivering training to staff in education settings and resources targeted at eastern European LMICs: future intervention development and adaptation efforts should address such gaps, to ensure capacity building materials exist for a sufficient variety of DD, settings and geographical areas. Beyond identifying these gaps, the value of the review lies in the compilation of summary tables of information on all freely available resources found, to support their selection and use in wider contexts. Information on the resource content, country of original development and copyright is provided to facilitate resource sharing and uptake.
Background: Conflict and violence can impact on the mental health of children and young people, who are in a crucial stage of their personal growth. Not much is known about the provision of mental health care to young people in conflict-affected areas. Community-based care can be essential, as state-led services are often scarce in conflict contexts, like Colombia's Pacific region where this research was conducted. According to the WHO, such care is ideally provided in the form of a network of interconnected services, offered by different actors beyond the formal health sector. This article describes the relationship between the formal and community mental health systems in Colombia's Pacific region, and identifies ways of improving their interaction.
Methods: Qualitative data were collected through 98 semi-structured interviews with community organisations, schools, international organisations and state institutions. These interviews aimed to identify the strategies used to promote young people's mental health and the interactions between the different providers. Boundary spanning theory was used to analyse how different actors and forms of mental health care provision could coordinate better.
Results: Community organisations and schools use a wide array of strategies to attend to the mental health of children and young people, often of a collective and psychosocial nature. State institutions offer more clinically focused strategies, which are however limited in terms of accessibility and continuity. International organisations aim to strengthen state capacity, but often struggle due to high staff turnover. Although mental health care pathways exist, their effectiveness is limited due to ineffective coordination between actors.
Conclusions: To make sure that the variety of strategies to improve young people's mental health effectively reach their beneficiaries, better coordination is needed between the different actors. Mental health care pathways should therefore integrate community organisations, while community connectors can help to manage the coordination between different actors and forms of clinical and psychosocial support.
Background: There is a need to improve mental health policy in Canada to address the growing population burden of mental illness. Understanding support for policy options is critical for advocacy efforts to improve mental health policy. Our purpose was to describe support for population-level healthy public policies to improve mental health among policy influencers and the general public in Alberta and Manitoba; and, identify associations between levels of support and sociodemographic variables and relative to the Nuffield Bioethics Intervention Ladder framework.
Methods: We used data from the 2019 Chronic Disease Prevention Survey, which recruited a representative sample of the general public in Alberta (n = 1792) and Manitoba (n = 1909) and policy influencers in each province (Alberta n = 291, Manitoba n = 129). Level of support was described for 16 policy options using a Likert-style scale for mental health policy options by province, sample type, and sociodemographic variables using ordinal regression modelling. Policy options were coded using the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Intervention Ladder to classify support for policy options by level of intrusiveness.
Results: Policy options were categorized as 'Provide Information' and 'Enable Choice' according to the Nuffield Intervention Ladder. There was high support for all policy options, and few differences between samples or provinces. Strong support was more common among women and among those who were more politically left (versus center). Immigrants were more likely to strongly support most of the policies. Those who were politically right leaning (versus center) were less likely to support any of the mental health policies. Mental health status, education, and Indigenous identity were also associated with support for some policy options.
Conclusions: There is strong support for mental health policy in Western Canada. Results demonstrate a gap between support and implementation of mental health policy and provide evidence for advocates and policy makers looking to improve the policy landscape in Canada.