If lack of mental health awareness is related to the society’s acceptance of mental institutes, then raising mental health awareness among the Saudi society will make them accept AlAmal complex for mental health
According to Jorm (1), failing to provide health literacy to the public may result into lack of access to mental health care. It may also lead to lack of suitable support from the community for the patients. Mental health literacy can be defined as knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders that help in identification, management and prevention of mental disorders.
Mental health literacy encompasses several aspects which include: the ability to identify mental disorders, ability to identify risk factors that predispose someone to mental disorders, understanding the various self-help interventions that can be applied to alleviate the effects of mental disorders, ability to identify how to access the relevant mental health care personnel, having the means of accessing the relevant information on health care, and having positive attitudes that can facilitate identification of the mental disorders and seeking for the appropriate mental health care attention.
It can be argued that persons having mental disorders or even those living with them will try to manage the debilitating symptoms of the illness. However, their intervention will mostly be influenced by their level of mental health literacy. If there is a greater awareness on mental health literacy, it will result in more effective measures being undertaken by the persons concerned. In addition, mental health literacy should be viewed as a means of empowering the public in order to assist the professionals to better manage mental disorders. Furthermore, the need to provide more information on mental health should be hinged on the premise that the lifetime prevalence of mental disorders is 50%. This, in effect, implies that everyone is at risk of developing mental disorders or have a close relative living with it.
Mental health literacy is very important as it helps in shaping the beliefs and perception of the public. This has a profound effect on the ability and willingness of the people to seek medical help when they face mental disorders, as well as affect the possibility of compliance with the medication that may be recommended by the doctor. In addition, lack of proper mental health literacy results in negative beliefs in mental disorders that hinder access to the appropriate mental health care.
This exacerbates the condition. Some of those beliefs about mental disorders can be that mental disorders are caused by witch craft or by curses. This makes people concerned to be reluctant to seek the proper attention that can be required to lessen the impact of mental disorders.
Another possible effect of lack of mental health literacy is the fact that it helps in shaping the perception of self-help interventions. This is because for milder mental disorders, self-help interventions can be effective. However, in cases of severe mental disorders, this intervention might not work and the patient may require seeking the services of a doctor. Nevertheless, lack of proper information regarding mental disorders may give rise to a situation where the patients and their families view self-help strategies as the panacea for all the mental disorders, which is a very erroneous view.
Promotion of mental health literacy would also ensure that there is an appropriate collaboration between the health care personnel and the society. This would help in improving the likelihood of recovery of the patients when they are released into the society due to the help and support which they receive. Mental health literacy also helps in understanding the role of psychologists and psychiatrists. This helps in preventing the patients and their families from accessing care from traditional sources, for example, witchdoctors; since this tends to be ineffective in addressing mental disorders.
Mental health literacy also helps the patients and their families to interact properly with the doctors since they are in a better position to explain the condition of the patient to the medical practitioner in the right way, thereby facilitating proper treatment for the patient. However, lack of mental literacy can result in a situation where the doctor is given inaccurate information. This mignt end up in influencing the kind of treatment given to the patient.
Moreover, lack of the right information gives rise to reluctance by the patients to discuss their mental health problems. This can result to a situation where patients avoid going to the doctors for mental health care. This is usually due to the stigma associated with mental health. This is particularly fueled in situations where there is the likelihood of discrimination should others know that someone is suffering from the condition.
Therefore, it can be seen that dissemination of the appropriate information on mental disorders to the Saudi society would result in more people going to AlAmal complex for mental health to seek for mental health care attention when faced with mental disorders. Therefore, the health fraternity should ensure that people are properly sensitized about mental disorders to ensure that appropriate treatment is sought for the patients.
If changing a brand’s image affects the behavior of the public then rejuvenating and rebranding AlAmal complex for mental health will attract more visitors
Firstly, the AlAmal complex should involve the participation of the public. This can be done through listening to their views on what needs to be improved regarding health care provision to the people with mental disorders. This is because the public are the final clients of the service provided by the complex and can give valuable information.
The negative perception held by the public towards AlAmal complex can be traced to lack of proper information on mental health. This goes as far as preventing the people against going to the facility when having mental disorders. However, proper re-branding of the facility will positively affect the willingness of the people to access medical care when they face mental disorders.
According to Patel et. al (8), some of the measures that can be used to re-brand the facility include: having youthful and friendly mental health care personnel supported by a group of dedicated support staff to facilitate the effective delivery of service to the patients. In addition, the facility should be age sensitive such that the elders and young people are separated. This will ensure that the mental care provided to each one of them is specialized and appropriate for the age group. This is because the young and the old have very different needs that need to be taken care of.
The management of AlAmal complex should also ensure that they hire enough dedicated staff. This can help in eradicating the perception that the delivery of services in the hospital is ineffective. This should be accompanied by allocation of enough resources to help in service delivery. The mental health care staff should also designate specific days for providing mental health information to the public with a view to debunking the various myths which serves to prevent the public from accessing health care.
That notwithstanding, the management at the complex should also ensure that the facility offers a conducive environment, where the patients can receive effective health care. In addition, the youth should be provided with facilities that provide activities such as sports and other leisure activities. This would help the youth to be more willing to go to the facility when facing mental disorders. In addition, mental health care providers should be committed to provision of evidence-based treatment. They should also be at the forefront when providing mental health literacy. This will serve as one of the preventive measures against mental disorders.
Moreover, the management at the complex should work closely with the society in order to facilitate the integration of the patients back into the society once they complete their treatment at the facility. This would reduce the instances when the treated patients are mixed with other patients who are newly admitted to the hospital. This ends up in hurting the treated patients due to psychological effects that these patients can have on them and they may relapse to their former state.
This timely release of the patients once they have been treated will end up in increasing the capacity of the hospital. This is because the resources of the hospital will not be overly strained. This proposed action will enhance positive attitudes among the public to the efficiency of the facility. This will bolster their confidence in the hospital with the resultant increase of visitors seeking treatment for various mental disorders.
If space availability affects the capability of a firm to manage over capacity then expanding AlAmal complex will limit the number of rejected patients
The capacity for admission of patients determines how many patients can be treated at the facility. The management can expand the existing facility with a view to increasing the number of patients who can be treated. However, in order to achieve this, the management should allocate enough resources in order to facilitate the expansion. This expansion should be informed by the fact that the hospital’s space is inadequate and its design is also not very appropriate. This renders service delivery in this hospital ineffective.
More space will ensure that the hospital can admit more patients undergoing rehabilitation thus ensuring that they receive proper treatment under the watchful eyes of the doctors. This is important since discharging patients before they are properly treated could nullify the treatment which they could have so far received. In addition, more space would also enhance the privacy of the patients, as well as providing accommodation to those patients who could be facing rejection by their families and friends thus making their integration into the community difficult.
However, this expansion should be coupled with enough staff in order to facilitate effective service delivery to the patients which is the key objective of the facility. These two components would significantly reduce the number of rejected patients at the facility.
Works Cited
Jorm, Anthony. “Mental health literacy Public knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders.” The British Journal of Psychiatry 177 (2000): 396-401. Print.
Patel, Vikram, Allan Flisher, Sara Hetrick and Patrick McGorry. “Mental health of young people: a global public-health challenge.” Adolescent Health. 369.3 (2007): 1302 – 1313. Print.