The use of indicators for the management of Mental Health Services

OBJECTIVE: to identify indicators that can be used in the management of Mental Health Services. METHOD: an integrative review in which we adopted the Population, Concept, and Context strategy to formulate the following Guiding Question: “Which indicators can be used for the management of mental health services?”. RESULTS: a total of 22 articles were included and divided into two main groups: countries with initial high income (54%) as well as low- and middle-income countries (46%). We identified 5 studies that had experienced the use of indicators, 5 studies that had reported partial implementation, 9 studies that did not report use or implementation, 1 study on the indicator selection process, 1 as an implementation pilot, and a final study with a discussion for implementation. High-income countries also find it difficult to implement mental health indicators. The main difficulties in adopting the use of indicators are lack of basic mental health services, financial resources, legislation, political interest, and guidelines for its management. CONCLUSION: it is unusual to find a descriptive comparison of quality monitoring programs at the system level in the technical-scientific literature related to mental health indicators.