Migrants referring to the Bologna Transcultural Psychiatric Team: Reasons for drop-out

Abstract

Psychiatric consultation services to migrants could be made more effective by enhancing: (a) cultural competence, through cultural mediator involvement; and (b) social support from the first psychiatric contact. These two characteristics of psychiatric consultation could be developed from resources ordinarily present in the context of a CMHC and could then become a cost-effective strategy for addressing mental health needs among first-generation immigrants.

Migrant pathways to community mental health centres in Italy

“…In the most difficult cases, the BoTPT team directly delivers psychiatric and psychosocial treatment to migrants; in other cases, the BoTPT team provides a consultation designed to identify the mental and psychosocial needs of the migrants and then redirects patients within the CMHC and other services. This team's work is different from activities routinely delivered by the whole CMHC team since on request it may involve a cultural mediator and it implies higher attention (Tarricone et al 2009;Tarricone et al, 2010).…”

Immigrants’ Pathways to Outpatient Mental Health: Are there Differences with the Native Population?

“…Only a few studies have assessed immigrants' access to community services for mental health, which represent the psychiatric care hub in our Country [17][18][19]. It should be underscored that not all countries share the same organization as far as mental health services are concerned; in Italy, psychiatric services strongly rely on outpatient care, and psychiatric wards of general hospitals are used only for short stays during acute phases, while immigrants may be more likely to turn to the hospital as first place for help-seeking [6].…”

Disparities in mental health care provision to immigrants with severe mental illness in Italy

“…The migratory flow has mainly headed in the last decade to the Northern Italian regions, among which Emilia-Romagna region was one of the most open to newcomers that currently total 11.9% of the population (http://statistica.regione.emilia-romagna.it/servizi-online/ statistica-self-service/popolazione/popolazione-residentestraniera, accessed 1 December_2013). Despite these significant social and demographic changes, to our knowledge only few studies have been conducted on immigrants' mental health and service utilisation, some of which in Bologna (Tarricone et al 2009(Tarricone et al , 2011(Tarricone et al , 2012a(Tarricone et al , 2012bSpigonardo et al in press). In particular, differences in service use between Italians and immigrants have not been extensively investigated, with few exceptions (Gaddini et al 2008;Piazza et al 2010;Tarsitani et al 2012).…”