Consultations for refractory cases in mental health services: a descriptive study

Abstract

Background Yearly, almost six percent, which is more than 1,000.000 people, in the Netherlands receive mental health treatment, which usually improves their quality of life. Concurrently, mental healthcare professionals recognize clinically refractory cases in which improvement fails to occur, with severe ongoing burdens for patients. The Dutch Centre for Consultation and Expertise (CCE) is available to support such refractory cases. The Dutch government’s (financial) facilitation of consultation through the CCE is unique in the world. CCE consultations provide therefore unique insight into and an overview of refractory cases in mental health services. The objective of this study was to gain insight into the commonalities underlying the reasons for CCE consultations and the solutions proposed that play roles in (the reduction of) refractory cases for which consultation has been requested. Methods This descriptive study was conducted with quantitative and qualitative data from 472 CCE consultations in the Netherlands. Using descriptive statistics and thematic content analysis, four exemplary situations were distilled from the qualitative data. Results Most (83%) cases in the sample could be explained with four exemplary situations involving self-harm (24.2%), aggression (21.8%), self-neglect (24.4%), and socially unacceptable behavior (12.5%), respectively. Each situation could be characterized by a specific interaction pattern that unintentionally maintained or aggravated the situation. At the time of closure of the consultation applicants’ questions had been answered and their situations had improved in 60.4% of cases. Conclusions This study offers an overview of approaches that provided new perspectives for patients and professionals in many refractory cases in the Dutch mental health services.

It takes a village: what lessons can the UK learn from rural community mental health services in Ghana?

“…In the UK, the provision of mental health services in rural contexts has been further exacerbated by the economic crisis, Brexit and the austerity measures implemented by state policies (Cummins, 2018). Furthermore, farming and other agriculture-related sectors are known to face particular mental health challenges in the UK, with higher-than-average rates of depression and suicide (King et al, 2023). This has been associated with recent "shocks" -such as floods and animal culls 1 -that have occurred in some rural communities in the UK, and the lower rates of health-seeking and isolation that is characteristic of the largely male farming community (King et al, 2023;Daghagh Yazd et al, 2019).…”