Decentralisation and community stakeholders’ engagement for better mental health services development in the conflict-affected regions of Ukraine

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how conflict-affected communities in Ukraine (the Lugansk region) can develop sustainable mental health services in decentralised settings. The main interest focuses on community stakeholders’ perception of their problems and solutions that communities can create to achieve better mental health coverage. Design/methodology/approach A series of roundtables (RTs) (4 RTs, 62 participants overall), accompanied by interactive brainstorming techniques, were conducted with communities’ representatives/stakeholders from the East of Ukraine (Lugansk region, a government-controlled area) during the year 2021. Participants (health, mental health, social care workers and administration representatives) were provided with the opportunity to discuss mental health services’ development challenges and create affordable solutions for their communities. Results of discussions were submitted to qualitative analysis and offered for review by participants. Findings Decentralisation in Ukraine led to allocating funds alongside responsibilities for developing the services to communities. Most of the communities appear not to be ready to acknowledge the role of mental health services, entirely relying on the existing weak psychiatric hospital-based system. Awareness-raising interactive capacity-building activities for the community leaders and decision-makers effectively promote community-based mental health services development. Five clusters of challenges were identified: leadership, coordination and collaboration problems; infrastructure, physical accessibility and financial problems; mental health and primary health-care workforce shortage and lack of competencies; low awareness of mental health and available services and high stigma; war, crises and pandemic-related problems. Communities stakeholders foresaw seven domains of action: increasing the role of communities and service users in the initiatives of governmental bodies; establishing in the communities local coordination/working groups dedicated to mental health service development; developing the community-based spaces (hubs) for integrated services provision; embedding the mental health services in the existing services (social, administrative and health care); mental health advocacy and lobbying led by local leaders and service users; increasing capacity of communities in financial management, fundraising; developing services by combining efforts and budgets of neighbouring communities. Research limitations/implications The study has potential limitations. Participants of the roundtables were mostly appointed by local authorities, so some of them didn`t have a motivation for mental health services development. Service users were involved only from the facilitators` side, not from the side of communities; therefore, it was impossible to include their view of problems and solutions. Obtained data were limited to the opinion of local professionals, administration workers and other local stakeholders. The human rights aspect was not clearly articulated in the tasks of the roundtables. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper is original in terms of its topic (connecting decentralisation and local stakeholders’ engagement for understanding the challenges of mental health services development) and research strategy (engagement of Ukrainian communities, qualitative analysis of the discussion results and applying the best practices and international recommendations to the local context).

Systematicity of receiving mental health care predicts better subjective well-being of Ukrainians during the second year of the Russian invasion

“…Although recent publications also report the high engagement of Ukrainians in mental health services (Goto et al, 2023;Palii et al, 2023;Seleznova et al, 2023), we did not find any data about either the duration or systematicity of receiving mental health care by any group of Ukraine's citizens as well as their effects on well-being in previous research. Foremost, our findings contribute to the evidence that, as recommended during and after armed conflicts (Bai et al, 2022;Klymchuk et al, 2022), various mental health services were provided to Ukrainians in response to the 2022 Russian invasion, including hotlines (Palii et al, 2023;Pinchuk et al, 2022), chatbots (Frankova et al, 2022) and support groups (Lysnyk, 2023;Zinko and Mitchenko, 2022), designed to be conducted locally and remotely to involve affected people within Ukraine and abroad (Palii et al, 2023). However, in this study, we did not collect information on the type and format of the received care, whether the respondents thought that their needs for mental health care were fully covered and whether they sought any other mental health services to date research.…”

“…Foremost, our findings contribute to the evidence that, as recommended during and after armed conflicts (Bai et al. , 2022; Klymchuk et al. , 2022), various mental health services were provided to Ukrainians in response to the 2022 Russian invasion, including hotlines (Palii et al.…”

Stress, Anxiety and PTSD Prevalence Among Ukrainians Grew Dramatically During the First Year of Russian Invasion: Results of Nationwide Survey

“…At the time of the recent Russian invasion, the capacities of the Ukrainian mental health system insufficiently covered the needs of populations affected by the Crimea annexation and eight years of occupation in eastern Ukraine. 28 The war escalation required urgent solutions to deal with previous and current gaps between the mental health issues of Ukrainians and relevant professional services. 29,30 With the support of international institutions, that is in high demand during the war, 25 governmental and non-governmental institutions launched their projects and tools to provide Ukrainians with mental health services within the country and abroad.…”

Human-centric paradigm as a fundamental principle of the public administration system

“…Five clusters of problems and seven areas of action for the development of services were identified. The study had some limitations, but its novelty is that it focuses on connecting decentralization and local participation to understand the challenges of developing psychiatric services (Klymchuk et al, 2022).…”