Access to mental health

Abstract

It is essential that access for everybody to mental health services is guaranteed and it is important to support people to timely access and receive adequate, evidence-based treatments well aware that many countries around the globe have inadequate mental health systems and services. Accessibility is a service characteristics experienced by users and their carers and their networks, which enable them to use care where and when it is needed. Access deals with more complex issues, which operate, at the individual, community and governmental and national level. The main factors can be summarized as follows: (1) Structural discrimination in terms of low priority in budgeting, policy and laws; (2) Few available manpower resource; (3) Quality of service and support received; (4) Perception of the quality of service by the service users; (5) Barriers at individual and social levels, which prevents utilization of available services and care. An understanding of the relative contribution of each of the factors highlighted above to the issue of access is necessary and meaningful to build a nuanced picture for an individual or community. The promotion of access to mental health services at parity to physical health services, and by specifying that services need to be provided e.g. through primary health care centers and in general hospitals, mental health legislations in all countries are the basement and they are fundamental.