Feasibility Study in Mental Health

Association SOMATO from Balti conducted the Study with the regards to development of mental health services.
The document represents a radiographer of the mental health system from Moldova and comprises the recommendations for its optimization.
The study mentions the growth of incidents and prevalence of mental and behavioral disorders, and the factors which had influenced the worsening of the mental health incidence during the last years. Among them there are: insufficient number of specialists in psychiatry, reduction the number of beds meant for in-patient treatment, few alternative mental health services in traditional hospitals.
The elaborated document refers to the necessity of development and reforming mental health system by means of creation the network of community-based centers, which will offer extra-hospital services. The study investigates the problems which psychiatric hospitals and community-based centers form Moldova face.

In the study the authors made and an attempt to regard the mental health system from the beneficiaries’ perspective. With this purpose they had interviewed 101 patients from different profile institutions from the country.

In the investigation it was mentioned that the field of mental health had become less attractive for the graduates from Medical Universities, the factor which determines ageing of hospital personnel.

One of the recommendations the authors of the Study propose is creation of the National Center for Mental Health. This structure should be responsible for organization and coordination of mental health services system.

The feasibility study with the regards to the development of mental health services was effectuated in the period of 15 January – 15 March 2010. The data and the information were collected in municipalities Chisinau and Balti, districts Drochia, Cimişlia, Orhei, Ungheni, Cantemir and Cahul.

The study was effectuated (by Investigation and Consultancy Center „SocioPolis” ) within the Moldovan-Swiss project „Development of the system of community-based mental health services in Moldova, Stage 2” (funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation ).