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Improving Ghana’s mental healthcare through task-shifting- psychiatrists and health policy directors perceptions about government’s commitment and the role of community mental health workers

Overview of attention for article published in Globalization and Health, October 2016
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Title
Improving Ghana’s mental healthcare through task-shifting- psychiatrists and health policy directors perceptions about government’s commitment and the role of community mental health workers
Published in
Globalization and Health, October 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12992-016-0199-z
Pubmed ID
Authors

Vincent Israel Opoku Agyapong, Conor Farren, Eilish McAuliffe

Abstract

The scarcity of mental health professionals places specialist psychiatric care out of the reach of most people in low and middle income countries. There is growing interest in the effectiveness of task shifting as a strategy for targeting expanding health care demands in settings with shortages of qualified health personnel. Given this background, the aim of our study was to examine the perceptions of psychiatrists and health policy directors about the policy to expand mental health care delivery in Ghana through a system of task-shifting from psychiatrists to community mental health workers (CMHWs). A self-administered semi-structured questionnaire was developed and administered to 11 psychiatrists and 29 health policy directors. Key informant interviews were also held with five psychiatrists and four health policy directors. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Qualitative data were analysed thematically. Almost all the psychiatrists and 23 (79.3 %) health policy directors were aware of the policy of the Government of Ghana to improve on the human resource base within mental health through a system of task-shifting. Overall, about half of the psychiatrists and 9 (31 %) health policy directors perceived there is some professional resistance to the implementation of the policy of task shifting. The majority of respondents were of the view that CMHWs should be allowed to assess, diagnose and treat most of the common mental disorders. The respondents identified that CMHWs usually perform two sets of roles, namely; officially assigned roles for which they have the requisite training and assumed roles for which they usually do not have the requisite training. The stakeholders identified multiple challenges associated with current task shifting arrangements within Ghana's mental health delivery system, including inadequate training and supervision, poor awareness of the scope of their expertise on the part of the CMHWs. Psychiatrists and health policy directors support the policy to expand mental health service coverage in Ghana through a system of task-shifting, despite their awareness of resistance from some professionals. It is important that the Government of Ghana upholds its commitment of expanding mental healthcare by maintaining and prioritizing its policy on task shifting and also providing the necessary resources to ensure its success.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 170 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 170 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 28 16%
Student > Ph. D. Student 19 11%
Researcher 18 11%
Student > Bachelor 14 8%
Student > Postgraduate 13 8%
Other 33 19%
Unknown 45 26%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 32 19%
Nursing and Health Professions 24 14%
Social Sciences 19 11%
Psychology 12 7%
Engineering 5 3%
Other 24 14%
Unknown 54 32%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 03 October 2016.
All research outputs
#7,175,981
of 22,890,496 outputs
Outputs from Globalization and Health
#795
of 1,108 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#110,496
of 324,317 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Globalization and Health
#17
of 27 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,890,496 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 68th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,108 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 21.9. This one is in the 27th percentile – i.e., 27% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 324,317 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 65% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 27 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 37th percentile – i.e., 37% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.