File photo used for representation only.
Qatar’s mental health service has undergone a major transformation in the last two decades, replacing the institution-based service with an accessible multidisciplinary community-based service, according to a research report published in an international journal.
The study ‘Qatar Community Mental Health Care: Achievements and Challenges,’ has outlined that as a result of health strategies and policies implemented in the country, mental health services have seen a transition from hospital based to community-based care. The new comprehensive and integrated mental health system offers treatment in a range of settings.
Following the Mental Health Strategy recommendations, a better-resourced Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) started providing services from a new community mental health facility located in Doha. The 2013-2018 Qatar National Mental Health Strategy (QNMHS) set out a vision for a mental health system in Qatar.
“CMHT provides a range of services including community outreach, psychiatric day-care programmes for male and female patients, residential rehabilitation, and community-based outpatient clinics. In 2019, the second community outreach team was established in the city of Al Wakrah in the south of Qatar, and subsequently the catchment area was divided between the two teams,” said the research report.
The mental health community outreach service is provided by the two dedicated teams covering the whole country. This outreach service aims to ensure medication adherence, minimise relapse, and reduce the need for inpatient admissions. The psychiatric day-care service, is provided by a dedicated multidisciplinary team, bringing together all mental health specialities to support patients with chronic mental illness who need structure in their daily activities. A day-care programme is commonly used for patients who require a more intense follow-up than can be provided in a regular outpatient clinic.
The residential rehabilitation service includes supervised residential for patients with severe and enduring mental illness who have spent long periods in acute inpatient settings and for who discharge home is not an option for a variety of clinical or social reasons.
“Community-based outpatient clinics receive referrals from 10 primary health-care centres located in the west of Doha. The remaining 27 centres in the country send referrals to the main outpatient clinics in the central psychiatric hospital. The most common diagnoses among referrals to these clinics are depression, anxiety and psychosomatic disorders,” according to the report published in the latest edition of Consortium Psychiatricum, and international journal of psychiatry and interdisciplinary research on mental health.
“The current caseload of this outpatient clinic is approximately 720 patients and is steadily increasing. These clinics are provided by the three community-based consultant psychiatrists in addition to the trainee doctors under consultant supervision,” said the report.
The report also highlighted that community mental health service has showed reduction in admission rates and duration of hospital stay of patients.
“Follow-up by the CMHT has been a major contributor in facilitating earlier discharge from the acute inpatient settings,” said the report.
“Increase in service users’ satisfaction. The CMHT receives regular feedback from patients and families to guide and inform service priorities and gauge service users’ satisfaction. This feedback indicates that users’ satisfaction has been steadily increasing.”
The report also states that depression, anxiety and psychosomatic disorders are the most common mental illnesses seen in primary care centres in Qatar. The report has outlined the challenges for community mental health services including stigma, large catchment area and cases with special needs.
