Cargando…
Demographic and clinical characteristics of foreign nationals accessing psychiatric services in Japan: a multicentre study in a metropolitan area
BACKGROUND: International immigration to Japan, where homogeneous ethnicity is a population characteristic, has been growing. Although immigration is recognised as a risk factor for multiple mental-health related issues, there are few regional reports on foreign nationals accessing the psychiatric s...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2020
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7713363/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33267861 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-02951-z |
_version_ | 1783618563988258816 |
---|---|
author | Takubo, Youji Nemoto, Takahiro Iwai, Momoko Kashima, Minako Yamaguchi, Eriko Maruyama, Akiko Miura, Sachio Saito, Hisaaki Tsujino, Naohisa Mizuno, Masafumi |
author_facet | Takubo, Youji Nemoto, Takahiro Iwai, Momoko Kashima, Minako Yamaguchi, Eriko Maruyama, Akiko Miura, Sachio Saito, Hisaaki Tsujino, Naohisa Mizuno, Masafumi |
author_sort | Takubo, Youji |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: International immigration to Japan, where homogeneous ethnicity is a population characteristic, has been growing. Although immigration is recognised as a risk factor for multiple mental-health related issues, there are few regional reports on foreign nationals accessing the psychiatric services in Japan. We aimed to reveal their current status and provide information to develop an optimal service system. METHODS: A multicentre retrospective document review research was conducted. The subjects were foreign nationals who resided in Japan and presented at the psychiatry departments in three core regional hospitals in the Keihin region, which faces Tokyo Bay and is well known to include the largest traditional industrial zone in Japan, over a period of 3 years. We investigated the patients’ demographic and clinical information including country/region of origin, spoken language, use of a medical interpreter, pathway to hospitals and outcome. RESULTS: The percentage of foreign patients among all patients (1.4%) was quite low. Their age distribution (45.8 years on average) was dissociated from the age distribution of foreign nationals who resided in Japan. Regarding the country/region of origin, China (35.1%) was the most common country, followed by the Philippines, Korea and Brazil. Several subjects (22.9%) could not speak Japanese; therefore, interpretation was required by family members/friends (17.1%) or a professional interpreter (5.4%). Neurotic and stress-related disorders were the most common diagnosis (24.4%). The proportion of psychoactive substance use was higher than that for Japanese national data as immigrants are known to be at risk for it. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that foreign nationals who reside in Japan are less likely to contact appropriate services for mental illness, especially young people at relatively high risk of mental illness do not access services. Furthermore, lack of medical interpreters may impede the mental health conditions of foreign nationals. The development of a community-based integrated care system accessible to foreign nationals seems to be indispensable. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7713363 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77133632020-12-03 Demographic and clinical characteristics of foreign nationals accessing psychiatric services in Japan: a multicentre study in a metropolitan area Takubo, Youji Nemoto, Takahiro Iwai, Momoko Kashima, Minako Yamaguchi, Eriko Maruyama, Akiko Miura, Sachio Saito, Hisaaki Tsujino, Naohisa Mizuno, Masafumi BMC Psychiatry Research Article BACKGROUND: International immigration to Japan, where homogeneous ethnicity is a population characteristic, has been growing. Although immigration is recognised as a risk factor for multiple mental-health related issues, there are few regional reports on foreign nationals accessing the psychiatric services in Japan. We aimed to reveal their current status and provide information to develop an optimal service system. METHODS: A multicentre retrospective document review research was conducted. The subjects were foreign nationals who resided in Japan and presented at the psychiatry departments in three core regional hospitals in the Keihin region, which faces Tokyo Bay and is well known to include the largest traditional industrial zone in Japan, over a period of 3 years. We investigated the patients’ demographic and clinical information including country/region of origin, spoken language, use of a medical interpreter, pathway to hospitals and outcome. RESULTS: The percentage of foreign patients among all patients (1.4%) was quite low. Their age distribution (45.8 years on average) was dissociated from the age distribution of foreign nationals who resided in Japan. Regarding the country/region of origin, China (35.1%) was the most common country, followed by the Philippines, Korea and Brazil. Several subjects (22.9%) could not speak Japanese; therefore, interpretation was required by family members/friends (17.1%) or a professional interpreter (5.4%). Neurotic and stress-related disorders were the most common diagnosis (24.4%). The proportion of psychoactive substance use was higher than that for Japanese national data as immigrants are known to be at risk for it. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that foreign nationals who reside in Japan are less likely to contact appropriate services for mental illness, especially young people at relatively high risk of mental illness do not access services. Furthermore, lack of medical interpreters may impede the mental health conditions of foreign nationals. The development of a community-based integrated care system accessible to foreign nationals seems to be indispensable. BioMed Central 2020-12-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7713363/ /pubmed/33267861 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-02951-z Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. 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 in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Takubo, Youji Nemoto, Takahiro Iwai, Momoko Kashima, Minako Yamaguchi, Eriko Maruyama, Akiko Miura, Sachio Saito, Hisaaki Tsujino, Naohisa Mizuno, Masafumi Demographic and clinical characteristics of foreign nationals accessing psychiatric services in Japan: a multicentre study in a metropolitan area |
title | Demographic and clinical characteristics of foreign nationals accessing psychiatric services in Japan: a multicentre study in a metropolitan area |
title_full | Demographic and clinical characteristics of foreign nationals accessing psychiatric services in Japan: a multicentre study in a metropolitan area |
title_fullStr | Demographic and clinical characteristics of foreign nationals accessing psychiatric services in Japan: a multicentre study in a metropolitan area |
title_full_unstemmed | Demographic and clinical characteristics of foreign nationals accessing psychiatric services in Japan: a multicentre study in a metropolitan area |
title_short | Demographic and clinical characteristics of foreign nationals accessing psychiatric services in Japan: a multicentre study in a metropolitan area |
title_sort | demographic and clinical characteristics of foreign nationals accessing psychiatric services in japan: a multicentre study in a metropolitan area |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7713363/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33267861 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-02951-z |
work_keys_str_mv | AT takuboyouji demographicandclinicalcharacteristicsofforeignnationalsaccessingpsychiatricservicesinjapanamulticentrestudyinametropolitanarea AT nemototakahiro demographicandclinicalcharacteristicsofforeignnationalsaccessingpsychiatricservicesinjapanamulticentrestudyinametropolitanarea AT iwaimomoko demographicandclinicalcharacteristicsofforeignnationalsaccessingpsychiatricservicesinjapanamulticentrestudyinametropolitanarea AT kashimaminako demographicandclinicalcharacteristicsofforeignnationalsaccessingpsychiatricservicesinjapanamulticentrestudyinametropolitanarea AT yamaguchieriko demographicandclinicalcharacteristicsofforeignnationalsaccessingpsychiatricservicesinjapanamulticentrestudyinametropolitanarea AT maruyamaakiko demographicandclinicalcharacteristicsofforeignnationalsaccessingpsychiatricservicesinjapanamulticentrestudyinametropolitanarea AT miurasachio demographicandclinicalcharacteristicsofforeignnationalsaccessingpsychiatricservicesinjapanamulticentrestudyinametropolitanarea AT saitohisaaki demographicandclinicalcharacteristicsofforeignnationalsaccessingpsychiatricservicesinjapanamulticentrestudyinametropolitanarea AT tsujinonaohisa demographicandclinicalcharacteristicsofforeignnationalsaccessingpsychiatricservicesinjapanamulticentrestudyinametropolitanarea AT mizunomasafumi demographicandclinicalcharacteristicsofforeignnationalsaccessingpsychiatricservicesinjapanamulticentrestudyinametropolitanarea |