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“A constant struggle to receive mental health care”: health care professionals’ acquired experience of barriers to mental health care services in Rwanda

BACKGROUND: In Rwanda, many people are still mentally affected by the consequences of the genocide and yet mental health care facilities are scarce. While available literature explains the prevalence and consequences of mental disorders, there is lack of knowledge from low-income countries on health...

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Autores principales: Rugema, Lawrence, Krantz, Gunilla, Mogren, Ingrid, Ntaganira, Joseph, Persson, Margareta
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4682265/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26672596
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-015-0699-z
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author Rugema, Lawrence
Krantz, Gunilla
Mogren, Ingrid
Ntaganira, Joseph
Persson, Margareta
author_facet Rugema, Lawrence
Krantz, Gunilla
Mogren, Ingrid
Ntaganira, Joseph
Persson, Margareta
author_sort Rugema, Lawrence
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: In Rwanda, many people are still mentally affected by the consequences of the genocide and yet mental health care facilities are scarce. While available literature explains the prevalence and consequences of mental disorders, there is lack of knowledge from low-income countries on health care seeking behavior due to common mental disorders. Therefore, this study sought to explore health care professionals’ acquired experiences of barriers and facilitators that people with common mental disorders face when seeking mental health care services in Rwanda. METHODS: A qualitative approach was applied and data was collected from six focus group discussions (FGDs) conducted in October 2012, including a total of 43 health care professionals, men and women in different health professions. The FGDs were performed at health facilities at different care levels. Data was analyzed using manifest and latent content analysis. RESULTS: The emerging theme “A constant struggle to receive mental health care for mental disorders” embraced a number of barriers and few facilitators at individual, family, community and structural levels that people faced when seeking mental health care services. Identified barriers people needed to overcome were: Poverty and lack of family support, Fear of stigmatization, Poor community awareness of mental disorders, Societal beliefs in traditional healers and prayers, Scarce resources in mental health care and Gender imbalance in care seeking behavior. The few facilitators to receive mental health care were: Collaboration between authorities and organizations in mental health and having a Family with awareness of mental disorders and health insurance. CONCLUSION: From a public health perspective, this study revealed important findings of the numerous barriers and the few facilitating factors available to people seeking health for mental disorders. Having a supportive family with awareness of mental disorders who also were equipped with a health insurance was perceived as vital for successful treatment. This study highlights the need of improving availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of mental health care at all levels in order to improve mental health care among Rwandans affected by mental disorders.
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spelling pubmed-46822652015-12-18 “A constant struggle to receive mental health care”: health care professionals’ acquired experience of barriers to mental health care services in Rwanda Rugema, Lawrence Krantz, Gunilla Mogren, Ingrid Ntaganira, Joseph Persson, Margareta BMC Psychiatry Research Article BACKGROUND: In Rwanda, many people are still mentally affected by the consequences of the genocide and yet mental health care facilities are scarce. While available literature explains the prevalence and consequences of mental disorders, there is lack of knowledge from low-income countries on health care seeking behavior due to common mental disorders. Therefore, this study sought to explore health care professionals’ acquired experiences of barriers and facilitators that people with common mental disorders face when seeking mental health care services in Rwanda. METHODS: A qualitative approach was applied and data was collected from six focus group discussions (FGDs) conducted in October 2012, including a total of 43 health care professionals, men and women in different health professions. The FGDs were performed at health facilities at different care levels. Data was analyzed using manifest and latent content analysis. RESULTS: The emerging theme “A constant struggle to receive mental health care for mental disorders” embraced a number of barriers and few facilitators at individual, family, community and structural levels that people faced when seeking mental health care services. Identified barriers people needed to overcome were: Poverty and lack of family support, Fear of stigmatization, Poor community awareness of mental disorders, Societal beliefs in traditional healers and prayers, Scarce resources in mental health care and Gender imbalance in care seeking behavior. The few facilitators to receive mental health care were: Collaboration between authorities and organizations in mental health and having a Family with awareness of mental disorders and health insurance. CONCLUSION: From a public health perspective, this study revealed important findings of the numerous barriers and the few facilitating factors available to people seeking health for mental disorders. Having a supportive family with awareness of mental disorders who also were equipped with a health insurance was perceived as vital for successful treatment. This study highlights the need of improving availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of mental health care at all levels in order to improve mental health care among Rwandans affected by mental disorders. BioMed Central 2015-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC4682265/ /pubmed/26672596 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-015-0699-z Text en © Rugema et al. 2015 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rugema, Lawrence
Krantz, Gunilla
Mogren, Ingrid
Ntaganira, Joseph
Persson, Margareta
“A constant struggle to receive mental health care”: health care professionals’ acquired experience of barriers to mental health care services in Rwanda
title “A constant struggle to receive mental health care”: health care professionals’ acquired experience of barriers to mental health care services in Rwanda
title_full “A constant struggle to receive mental health care”: health care professionals’ acquired experience of barriers to mental health care services in Rwanda
title_fullStr “A constant struggle to receive mental health care”: health care professionals’ acquired experience of barriers to mental health care services in Rwanda
title_full_unstemmed “A constant struggle to receive mental health care”: health care professionals’ acquired experience of barriers to mental health care services in Rwanda
title_short “A constant struggle to receive mental health care”: health care professionals’ acquired experience of barriers to mental health care services in Rwanda
title_sort “a constant struggle to receive mental health care”: health care professionals’ acquired experience of barriers to mental health care services in rwanda
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4682265/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26672596
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-015-0699-z
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