Prevalence of mental health disorders in inflammatory bowel disease: an Australian outpatient cohort

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to characterize prevalence of anxiety and depressive conditions and uptake of mental health services in an Australian inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) outpatient setting.

METHODS: Eighty-one IBD patients (39 males, mean age 35 years) attending a tertiary hospital IBD outpatient clinic participated in this study. Disease severity was evaluated according to the Manitoba Index. Diagnosis of an anxiety or depressive condition was based upon the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale.

RESULTS: Based on Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale subscale scores >8 and meeting Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview criteria, 16 (19.8%) participants had at least one anxiety condition, while nine (11.1%) had a depressive disorder present. Active IBD status was associated with higher prevalence rates across all anxiety and depressive conditions. Generalized anxiety was the most common (12 participants, 14.8%) anxiety condition, and major depressive disorder (recurrent) was the most common depressive condition reported (five participants, 6.2%). Seventeen participants (21%) reported currently seeking help for mental health issues while 12.4% were identified has having at least one psychological condition but not seeking treatment.

CONCLUSION: We conclude that rates of anxiety and depression are high in this cohort, and that IBD-focused psychological services should be a key component of any holistic IBD service, especially for those identified as having active IBD.

Perceptions of crisis care in populations who self-referred to a telephone-based mental health triage service

Although psychiatric crises are very common in people with mental illness, little is known about consumer perceptions of mental health crisis care. Given the current emphasis on recovery-oriented approaches, shared decision-making, and partnering with consumers in planning and delivering care, this knowledge gap is significant. Since the late 1990s, access to Australian mental health services has been facilitated by 24/7 telephone-based mental health triage systems, which provide initial psychiatric assessment, referral, support, and advice. A significant proportion of consumers access telephone-based mental health triage services in a state of crisis, but to date, there has been no published studies that specifically report on consumer perceptions on the quality and effectiveness of the care provided by these services. This article reports on a study that investigated consumer perceptions of accessing telephone-based mental health triage services. Seventy-five mental health consumers participated in a telephone interview about their triage service use experience. An eight-item survey designed to measure the responsiveness of mental health services was used for data collection. The findings reported here focus on the qualitative data produced in the study. Consumer participants shared a range of perspectives on telephone-based mental health triage that provide invaluable insights into the needs, expectations, and service use experiences of consumers seeking assistance with a mental health problem. Consumer perceptions of crisis care have important implications for practice. Approaches and interventions identified as important to quality care can be used to inform educational and practice initiatives that promote person-centred, collaborative crisis care.

Development and interrater reliability of the UK Mental Health Triage Scale

Mental health triage scales are clinical tools used at point of entry to specialist mental health service to provide a systematic way of categorizing the urgency of clinical presentations, and determining an appropriate service response and an optimal timeframe for intervention. The aim of the present study was to test the interrater reliability of a mental health triage scale developed for use in UK mental health triage and crisis services. An interrater reliability study was undertaken. Triage clinicians from England and Wales (n = 66) used the UK Mental Health Triage Scale (UK MHTS) to rate the urgency of 21 validated mental health triage scenarios derived from real occasions of triage. Interrater reliability was calculated using Kendall's coefficient of concordance (w) and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) statistics. The average ICC was 0.997 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.996-0.999 (F (20, 1300) = 394.762, P < 0.001). The single measure ICC was 0.856 (95% CI: 0.776-0.926 (F (20, 1300) = 394.762, P < 0.001). The overall Kendall's w was 0.88 (P < 0.001). The UK MHTS shows substantial levels of interrater reliability. Reliable mental health triage scales employed within effective mental health triage systems offer possibilities for not only improved patient outcomes and experiences, but also for efficient use of finite specialist mental health services.

A square peg in a round hole? Approaches to incorporating lifestyle counselling into routine primary health care

Few studies have explored how lifestyle counselling can be integrated into routine practice for primary health care (PHC) clinicians working outside general practice. This paper describes the feasibility of models of lifestyle counselling developed for PHC clinicians working in community health services and the congruence with routine practice. Action research methods were used to develop and implement models of lifestyle counselling in three community health teams. Following a six-month implementation period, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample of participants (n = 30) to explore the appropriateness of implementing risk factor management models in practice. Models were considered appropriate if they fitted the clinician’s philosophy of practice, were relevant to existing work tasks, could easily be integrated into workflow and were perceived as being acceptable to the client. The approach to service delivery and team priorities were also important in influencing which models suited particular teams. Models of lifestyle counselling for PHC clinicians outside general practice should be tailored to the clinicians’ and teams’ way of working and thus may need to be discipline-specific. Engaging PHC clinicians and teams is important in developing models that are acceptable and feasible in everyday practice.

A mediação como instrumento concretizador do direito fundamental à saúde: uma alternativa à judicialização de conflitos Natal 2013

In Brazil, the 1946 Constitution enshrined the right to health, having it defined as the possession of the best state of health that the individual can achieve. Already the Federal Constitution of 1988 lifted that right to the status of fundamental social right, which transcends the effectiveness and cure of the disease is based on the joint liability of public entities for the provision of a quality service, efficient and prioritize human dignity and comprehensive evaluation of patients. According to the World Health Organization, the definition of health, first characterized as the mere absence of disease, has become recognized as the need to search for preventive mechanisms to ensure the welfare and dignity of the population. Garantista this context, the growing seem lawsuits that deal with the implementation of public policies, especially in the area of the right to health, the omission of which the Government can result in the risk of death. Hence the concern of law professionals about whether or not the intervention of the judiciary in cases that deal with providing material benefits of health care. It claims to break the principle of separation of powers, disobedience to the principle of equality and the impossibility of judicial intervention in the formulation of public policy to try and exclude the liability of public entities. In contrast, the judiciary has repeatedly guardianships granted injunctions or merit determining the supply of materials indicated by the medical benefits that accompany the treatment of patients who resort to a remedy. In this context, mediation, object of study and resolution presented in this work, is presented as an instrument conciliator between the reserve clause and the right to financially possible existential minimum, as it seeks to serve all through rationalization of health services , avoidance of negativistic influence of the pharmaceutical industry, with prioritizing the welfare of the individual and the quality of relationships. This is alternative way to judicialization that in addition to encouraging and developing active citizen participation in public policy formulation also allows the manager to public knowledge of community needs. It is in this sense that affirms and defends the right to health is no longer the mere provision of medical care and prescription drugs, but a dialogue conscious existential minimum to guarantee a dignified life

O processo de trabalho e a composição técnica do trabalho do enfermeiro no cuidado à saúde da criança em unidades de saúde da familia

With the trajectory that the problems related to child health are taking in our society, particularly with regard to infant mortality, beyond the process of decentralization of health and the implementation of the Family Health Strategy in the cities, where it has increased considerably performance of nursing staff in Primary Health Care, they can be considered essential factors for reflections on the care of nurse dispenses the health of these children. In order to check how it is organized the working process of the nurse in caring for these children in USFs as well as the difficulties found in the dynamics of this work, this research aimed to analyze the work processes of nurses in care Child Health in USFs, with emphasis on technologies used in producing care. This is a research exploratory and descriptive with qualitative approach, based on the theoretical reference in about Work Process and Composition Technique of Work. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews of 11 nurses who, at the moment, perform their functions for more than 01 year at USF. The guiding questions were based at theoretical reference. To analyze the results, was used the referential of content analysis, and was refer to thematic analysis. In situations that were involved closed questions of the interview, was used the aid of SPSS 15.0 program for Windows. The results indicated that the process of nurse work in health care of children, focuses on the preventive character, whose focus of the actions are healthy children, following the routines and protocols established by the Ministry of Health with a view to maintaining health them. When analyzing the data through theoretical references of Composition Technique of Work found that the core technologies of daily tasks of the nurse are directed for the use of technology soft-hard and hard, and the reason established between the Dead Working and Alive Working, there is prevalence of the first against the second in the production of this care. These situations contribute to the explanation of the emergence problems related to adhesion of mothers / caregivers to monitoring the CD, due to character prescriptive and normalizer of actions. The results also suggested the presence of "vanishing lines" in the make of nurses, confirming the self-governance of health professionals in daily work. These "vanishing lines" express the own execution of the Work Live in action, guided by the use of soft technologies, however, was not characterized as a process of technology transition. So, to get a better resolution to the problems related to child health, the nurse has reorganize your work process by focusing on the execution of work live in action.

Ações dos agentes comunitários de saúde diante do usuário da estratégia saúde da família com estados depressivos no Município de Abaiara-CE-BR

Brazilian health public assistance is going through two Reforms, Sanitary and Psychiatric, and through these the assistance is guaranteed in the three levels: primary, secondary and tertiary. Thus, mental health assistance should be offered since preventive cares until the ones that demand larger technological apparatus. Programs like Health Community Agent's Program (HCAP) and Family Health Strategy (FHS), besides increasing the services coverage, have been making possible the system reorientation in the meaning of integrality, universalization and equity. Thus, united intervention of mental health team and FHS can offer several benefits to the population, providing assistance and follow-up to patients with mental disorder. It was aimed to assess health community agents facing the user of Family Health Strategy in depressive state. This quanti-qualitative study took place in the municipal district of Abaiara-CE. Semi-structured interview was applied with health community agents and Beck Depression Inventory with the users registered in Family Health Strategy. It was verified that among the 64 users interviewed, 12.5% didn't present symptoms of depression, 10.9% presented symptoms of light depression, 14.1% symptoms of moderate depression and 62.5% symptoms of serious depression. For the 22 health community agents interviewed, they all reported the existence of people with symptoms of depression in their personal micro-areas, being difficult to work with them, once the FHS team is not qualified to work with mental health problems. It was verified that the Municipal district doesn't have specialized professionals, making difficult the routing and treatment. Based on these results, it was concluded that in spite of the articulation of mental health with FHS is necessary and benefactor to the population, it still doesn't exist, worsening the situation, mainly in small Municipal districts, once they don't have mental health services. Thus, the population is exposed and without follow-up, which allows the identification of installed diseases and with gravity, like depression, because there are no prevention and control activities. It is recommended, due the extreme need, the elaboration and implantation of a mental health program in these municipal districts, articulated with FHS

Conhecimento do enfermeiro sobre as ações de vigilância epidemiológica no Hospital Universitário Onofre Lopes, Natal, RN

This is an exploratory descriptive study with quantitative approach, aiming to verify the nurses' knowledge concerning the epidemiological surveillance activities at the Onofre Lopes hospital (HUOL), in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. The study was performed with 63 nurses from the hospital and the data were collected through a questionnaire. All data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results were discussed and organized into four sections: nurses' knowledge on hospital epidemiological surveillance; procedures of the professional nurse through compulsory notification diseases; difficulties found by nurses to register the compulsory notification diseases and suggestions of strategies to joint epidemiological surveillance service with the care practices of nurses. The results showed that 55.55% of nurses know the main action of epidemiological surveillance, compulsory notification of diseases, and that 42.86% reported to the Hospital Epidemiology Center , while 57.14% did not allocate the information for this service. Most nurses found it difficult to perform notification for not knowing its flow; for the surveillance service does not operate 24 hours and for vagueness on diagnostic of disorders. Suggestions of strategies to improve the quality of epidemiological information are focused on training of nurses in hospital epidemiological surveillance; working in partnership with the surveillance center; diffusion of information on surveillance and conducting a daily active search. It comes to conclusion that most nurses don't notify the Surveillance Center about Compulsory Notification Diseases and it wasn't observed the incorporation of integrality values between the hospital surveillance and all nurses, since this principle guides the actions of health services based on dialogue, listening, ethical commitment, sharing of knowledge among professionals of various services and respect towards other professionals. Therefore, the integrality gap in the actions of the nurses studied, as well as in the surveillance service does not mobilize the potential of such services to changes in the sense of achievement of practices aimed at a special attention model that combines preventive and corrective actions, proposed and desired by SUS. Through the difficulties presented, it becomes important to recommend educational processes with strategy to transform the conducts, besides proposing actions under the principle of integrality provide responses agile and effective, as the purpose of VE hospital emergency care by the current epidemic

Avaliação da saúde bucal na atenção básica: a perspectiva do usuário

Nowadays, the basic attention in health works according to the Health Family Program (HFP), which is responsible for the organization of the health services with view to provide an appropriate attendance to the needs of the population. Its expansion is expressive in whole country and, the oral health, included in this process, has been seen as a possibility of change the health practices centered in the disease. In face of this perspective, the proposal of study is to discover possible changes in the health care model of oral health in a district, made possible through the perception, evaluation and degree of satisfaction of the user s health service. To reach such objectives, the district of Macaíba in the State of Rio Grande do Norte, was chosen for operational subjects, such as time of implantation of HFP and great covering of this program. The current research used interviews structured with objectives and subjectives questions and questionnaires of socioeconomic characterization addressed to two hundred and seventy (270) individuals (ninety users of an Urban PSF, ninety of a Rural PSF and ninety of an unit non PSF). The analysis of the data was accomplished through the software SPSS/99, that made possible a statistical and analytic appreciation. The HFP units and non HFP units has shown to sort the common odontology problems of the community, and this didn't establish a direct relationship with the general satisfaction. On the other hands, the programmed consultation is related with lager satisfaction of the users. The access form to the odontology treatment of the Units, the satisfaction with the attendance rendered by the dentist and the equip, enough dentists for the community and the social class of the user were decisive for the general satisfaction with the service of oral health. On the other hand, variables as age and education, resolution of the problem and physical conditions of the unit didn't influence the general satisfaction. In spite of the progresses in the implantation of the oral health in ESF, preventive activities, visits at home, access and social participation still reproduce the traditional model of attendance, showing a primary change process

The variability and predictors of quality of AIDS care services in Brazil

Background: Since establishing universal free access to antiretroviral therapy in 1996, the Brazilian Health System has increased the number of centers providing HIV/AIDS outpatient care from 33 to 540. There had been no formal monitoring of the quality of these services until a survey of 336 AIDS health centers across 7 Brazilian states was undertaken in 2002. Managers of the services were asked to assess their clinics according to parameters of service inputs and service delivery processes. This report analyzes the survey results and identifies predictors of the overall quality of service delivery.Methods: The survey involved completion of a multiple-choice questionnaire comprising 107 parameters of service inputs and processes of delivering care, with responses assessed according to their likely impact on service quality using a 3-point scale. K-means clustering was used to group these services according to their scored responses. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify predictors of high service quality.Results: The questionnaire was completed by 95.8% (322) of the managers of the sites surveyed. Most sites scored about 50% of the benchmark expectation. K-means clustering analysis identified four quality levels within which services could be grouped: 76 services (24%) were classed as level 1 (best), 53 (16%) as level 2 (medium), 113 (35%) as level 3 (poor), and 80 (25%) as level 4 (very poor). Parameters of service delivery processes were more important than those relating to service inputs for determining the quality classification. Predictors of quality services included larger care sites, specialization for HIV/AIDS, and location within large municipalities.Conclusion: The survey demonstrated highly variable levels of HIV/AIDS service quality across the sites. Many sites were found to have deficiencies in the processes of service delivery processes that could benefit from quality improvement initiatives. These findings could have implications for how HIV/AIDS services are planned in Brazil to achieve quality standards, such as for where service sites should be located, their size and staffing requirements. A set of service delivery indicators has been identified that could be used for routine monitoring of HIV/AIDS service delivery for HIV/AIDS in Brazil (and potentially in other similar settings).

Experiences of family members regarding the oral health care of children

Este estudo objetivou verificar a compreensão das experiências dos familiares em relação ao cuidado com a saúde bucal das crianças. É estudo qualitativo, realizado em 2007, em distrito de saúde do município de Ribeirão Preto, SP, com 12 cuidadores. Utilizou-se referencial teórico da vulnerabilidade e a perspectiva hermenêutica. Três categorias empíricas foram elaboradas: os significados do cuidado com a saúde bucal, em busca das causas e da prevenção de agravos bucais e a realidade dos serviços de saúde bucal. Entre outros elementos potencializadores da vulnerabilidade infantil aos agravos bucais, emergiu a supervalorização da causalidade biológica, do atendimento de alta complexidade e da odontologia estética e, entre os protetores, a valorização do saber popular e a integração de ações e conhecimentos profissionais. Aponta-se para a revisão das estratégias de prevenção e promoção de saúde bucal, fornecendo elementos para auxiliar os serviços de saúde a reorganizarem o cuidado com a saúde bucal de crianças.

Blaming the victim: Aspects of the Brazilian case

This report describes the consequences and some aspects of the origin and development of victim blaming in accident analysis, and some methods for investigating such events, with particular emphasis on the situation in Brazil. In Brazil, the spread of this practice seems to have been helped by several factors. (1) the idea that occupational accidents are simple phenomena with a limited number of causal factors linked to unsafe actions and/or conditions. In the past, the theory of accident proneness had less influence than in other countries. (2) Government regulations that stipulate the hiring of health and safety officers, production of educational material, and preventive campaigns that emphasize the role of the victim's faulty behavior in the origin of an accident. (3) Mandatory implementation of standardized models for accident investigation directed toward searching for a single cause. Usually one conclusion, expressed in terms of unsafe acts or conditions, is formulated so that whoever performs an unsafe act is responsible for the accident. (4) Lack of knowledge, as shown in Brazilian publications on occupational accidents and in the evolution of studies on the nature of accident phenomena and of strategies adopted for their prevention.

Brazilian health regions and scales: A geographical perspective

This paper offers a geographical perspective on the way in which health regions have been defined and established in São Paulo as part of overall Brazilian health policy. To accomplish this, I first situate the Brazilian case in the international debate over the regionalization of health services. Second, I examine health regionalization in the case of São Paulo and show how the process is dynamic and complex, involving geographical scales that go well beyond the administrative boundaries of Brazilian municipalities.

Methodological contributions towards the study of health care production: lessons from a research study on barriers and access in mental health

This article presents methodological contributions and a conceptual innovation for thinking about the production of health care, stemming from a study on access and barriers in mental health carried out in the municipality of Campinas (São Paulo, Brazil). The study used a cartographic approach and, after an initial identification of the most complex cases (on the part of the teams of workers), adopted the users as guides to explore the different levels of production of their lives and to evaluate the possibility of forming a network of existential connections that produce life as a fundamental analyzer of access or barriers to care.

CPITN: time and cost estimates for periodontal prevention and treatment procedures.

The aim of this study was to estimate the necessary time and cost for periodontal prevention and treatment in a working population from sugar and alcohol refineries in Araraquara, SP, Brazil. A stratified sample of 528 employees aged 18-64 from administrative, industrial and agricultural staffs was examined by one examiner, previously trained, according to the community periodontal index of treatment needs (CPITN). The time required for procedures and the cost was extrapolated to the total worker population. The results showed that the estimated time required for periodontal prevention/treatment was 4527 hours. Of this time, 1783 hours were required for oral hygiene instruction, 2531 for scaling, 151 for surgery and 62 for maintenance. The cost would be US $17,655 for hiring a dentist for 8 hours/day to provide oral hygiene instruction, scaling, surgery and maintenance. However, the cost would be US $9,028 for hiring a dentist for 4 hours/day to provide surgery and maintenance and a dental hygienist for 8 hours/day to provide scaling and oral hygiene instruction. Taking into account epidemiologic, technical and economic aspects, the decision relating to manpower should be this second option.