Resumo

VASQUEZ-ROJAS, Rafael; GORETTYPOLANIA-DUSSAN, Irina  e  REYES-RIVEROS, Mónica Siglyndy. What happened after day psychiatric hospitals for children and adolescents were closed?. rev.fac.med. [online]. 2012, vol.60, n.3, pp.215-220. ISSN 0120-0011.

Background. Some public hospitals' in Colombia offered a day hospital psychiatric service for children and adolescents; most were closed at the end of 2009. This population took on the search for gaining attention for their children; they were submitted to a lot of administrative and legal bureaucracy to be able to receive mental health attention. Objectives. Describing what happened to the children and adolescents attending day hospitals, their present status and the procedures/paperwork involved in being able to gain access to health mental services. Materials and Methods. A 2007 database concerning 160 patients was obtained from a day hospital for children and adolescents. The study's object was explained by telephone interview and the patients' mothers were invited to attend a semi-structured interview between April and June 2011 to identify the steps which they had had to follow to gain access to mental health services. Result. Just 24 of the 160 patients could be contacted by telephone; only 8 of them came for an interview. The mothers stated that all the children had improved and that they were very satisfied with the treatment at the time. At the time of the interview, five of them were worse and the parents were experiencing important barriers to gaining access to specialised consultation. Conclusions. Patients took two months on average to obtain an appointment with a health mental specialist. So, even though being minors, their parents had to face administrative barriers limiting rapid, easy and early access to a mental health service.

Palavras-chave : Child psychiatry; day hospital; treatments; mental health.

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