Severe Mental Illnesses– impact and burden on community mental health

Abstract

Introduction. Severe Mental Illnesses (SMI) is defined as a mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder resulting in serious functional impairment, which substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities. The burden of mental illnesses is particularly concentrated among those who experience disability due to SMI. SMI are a small subset of the 300 mental illnesses that are in DSM ( Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). While the line between mental health and serious mental illness is debatable, the extremities are clear. SMI represent a high burden of disease in Moldova. It’s incidence and prevalence, as well as the disability caused by depressive disorders, has continuously increased. The treatment of SMI involves a holistic, multidisciplinary intervention at community level regardless of form and evolution. Community mental health care means any care or support you receive in order to help you manage a mental health problem while living in the community. Community mental health care focuses on providing services within the community, close to people's homes, and hospital stays are as close as possible, organized promptly and used only in case of need. Community mental health care offers a series of medical and social services, in the form of integrated care, in order to optimize the possibilities of recovery of the person with mental health problems. In this context, community (mental) health care could mean: Treatment, such as psychological interventions (for example, psychoeducation or psychotherapy, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy) or pharmacological interventions (eg, appropriate drugs and dosage) Crisis intervention (for example, hospitalization in the case of acute conditions at rayon hospitals or psychiatric hospital). Support or continuous interventions by the multidisciplinary community mental health team. Within any mental health system, 'good services' are those that provide efficient, safe, high quality care to the people who need them, when they need them. There is no specific model of service delivery or organizational model of good service delivery, rather general factors that underpin successful approaches (World Health Organization - WHO). Aim of the study. The purpose of the research is to identify the social functionality and the needs of people suffering from severe mental illnesses, as well as to elaborate recommendations based on the detected needs. Materials and methods. - Historical analyses of illnesses and care - Interview - Study and analysis of the scientific literature - Quantitative and qualitative processing of results Conclusions. SMI is a current public health problem with a high incidence and prevalence. It leads to a high rate of disability which eventually leads to the disintegration of people within the society. Recovery requires great efforts, a multidisciplinary and holistic approach. It is a social, family and personal burden, which leads to financial, psychological and moral damage. People do not have friends and social network and the results showed this fact. People are rejected from family and society and they feel abandoned. So there is still a long way to go to rehabilitate people with SMI and integrate them into the community.