The Quality of Care Provided by Outpatient Mental Health Services in Georgia

Abstract

Georgia has recently made a commendable effort to reform mental health care. The Concept on Mental Health Care adopted by the Government and the two strategic plans for 20142020 and 20212031, which aimed to develop comprehensive evidence-based, culturally appropriate, and human rights-oriented mental health care, have promoted the deinstitutionalization and development of community mental health services. Since 2018, new standards of care for mental health ambulatories and mobile teams have been imposed and implemented in the state programme and funded accordingly. The study aimed to investigate the quality of care in community mental health services. As a result, we monitored the mental health ambulatories in all major cities and regional centres of the country (in total, 16 ambulatories) and the mobile teams which had at least two years of experience (in total, 14 mobile teams). The data analyses showed that the new standards for ambulatories and mobile teams increased access to and coverage of mental health care across the country. However, further effort is still needed to achieve comprehensive treatment by mental health care services.

Keywords

• quality of care
• community mental health
• mobile team
• ambulatory