Views of patient relatives and health professionals about the reasons of the patients enrolled in the community mental health center to discontinue or irregularly continue the center

Abstract

Background: The aim of the study was to determine the views of patient relatives and health professionals about the reasons of patients enrolled in the community mental health center to discontinue or irregularly continue the center. Methods: This study is qualitative and phenomenological. The study group consisted of 17 patient relatives and eight health professionals according to the maximum variation sampling method. In the study, the data were collected using the personal information form in semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed with the descriptive (thematic) method in the MAXQDA 2018 package program. Results: In line with the research findings, themes and codes were determined based on the statements of patient relatives and health professionals. For patient relatives, the themes were determined as disease symptoms, disease effect/coping difficulties, misbeliefs-fears, problems about the center, and social and economic causes. For health professionals, the themes were determined as reasons for not coming to the community mental health center, problems related to center health professionals, level/severity of the disease and treatment compliance, socio-economic conditions and problems experienced by health professionals. Conclusion: It can be said that the views of patient relatives and health professionals about the discontinuity of patients to the center were similar. It was seen that the problems regarding factors such as disease severity, disease effects, knowledge and beliefs of the family, stigma, functionality and promotion of the center were effective in patient’s continuity to the center. In line with the research findings, it was recommended to improve the quality of the activities in the center to increase the number of patients enrolled in the community mental health center and their continuity, develop training programs that also involve health professionals to increase the quality of service, and increase the cooperation with patient relatives.