Needs assessed by psychiatric health care and social services in a defined cohort of clients with mental disabilities

• Background The identification of needs forsupport and service in clients with long-term mentaldisabilities is usually not done by staff personnel fromboth psychiatric care and social services.However, sucha process is probably necessary in order to provide adequatepsychiatric care and social services. Aims To estimatethe prevalence of mentally disabled clients and investigatewhether staff from psychiatric care and socialservices identified the same individuals and the samenumber of needs in the same areas. Methods Clientsfrom a defined catchment area were identified during athree-month period. A questionnaire was developed tocollect socio-demographic information and to assessneeds for support and service. Results The study identified1,290 clients with needs with a prevalence of5.72/1000 inhabitants. More than half of the clientsneeded support in activities of daily living. Only 18.1%of the clients were identified by both organizations. Ingeneral, the staff from psychiatric care and social servicesidentified the same needs at a group level. However,at the individual level, agreement was quite low.Conclusions The staffs from both psychiatric care andsocial services are necessary to evaluate the needs ofsupport and services in clients with mental disabilities.

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MEDICIN

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