IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v70y2024i2p355-363.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

First-contact patients with a community mental health service in rural Greece: A 3-year prospective study of treatment attendance and its co-relations

Author

Listed:
  • Aikaterini Grammeniati
  • Alexandra Mantziou
  • Vaios Peritogiannis

Abstract

Background: Treatment continuation is essential for the optimal management of patients with mental disorders in the community, but treatment and outcome are often undermined by the high rates of service disengagement and treatment non-adherence across all psychiatric diagnoses. The phenomenon may be even more relevant in rural settings. Aims: The aim of the present study was to explore attendance to treatment in first-contact patients in a community-based treatment setting in rural Greece and to explore the associations of treatment attendance with demographic and clinical factors. Method: Data were collected prospectively over a 3-year period, with 1-year follow-up interval. All first-contact cases with the Mobile Mental Health Unit of the prefectures of Ioannina and Thesprotia (MMHU I-T), Northwest Greece were considered, but only clinical cases were processed. Results: The sample size consisted of 446 patients, with a mean age 65.4 ± 18.8 years. The rate of 12-month attendance to mental health treatment was 13.5% (60 out of 446 patients). Treatment attendance was found to be correlated with younger age, the diagnosis of schizophrenia-spectrum disorder, and patients’ referral by other psychiatric services. First examination over the year 2019 had been significantly inversely associated with treatment engagement. Conclusion: Rates of subsequent attendance after initial assessment in a rural community mental healthcare setting were rather low in the present study. Several variables that have been previously associated with service engagement were found to be related in this study too, whereas other were not. Research on treatment engagement in rural treatment settings should be ongoing to reveal all associated factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Aikaterini Grammeniati & Alexandra Mantziou & Vaios Peritogiannis, 2024. "First-contact patients with a community mental health service in rural Greece: A 3-year prospective study of treatment attendance and its co-relations," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 70(2), pages 355-363, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:70:y:2024:i:2:p:355-363
    DOI: 10.1177/00207640231212097
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00207640231212097
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00207640231212097?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vaios Peritogiannis & Sofia Rousoudi & Theofanis Vorvolakos & Panagiota Gioti & Afroditi Gogou & Argiri Arre & Maria Samakouri, 2022. "A comparative study of two Mobile Mental Health Units in different catchment rural areas in Greece," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 68(2), pages 324-333, March.
    2. Vaios Peritogiannis & Maria Samakouri, 2021. "Research on psychotic disorders in rural areas: Recent advances and ongoing challenges," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 67(8), pages 1046-1057, December.
    3. Vaios Peritogiannis & Panagiota Gioti & Afroditi Gogou & Maria Samakouri, 2020. "Decrease of hospitalizations and length of hospital stay in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders treated in a community mental health service in rural Greece," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 66(7), pages 693-699, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vaios Peritogiannis & Ioannis Drakatos & Panagiota Gioti & Aikaterini Garbi, 2023. "Vaccination rates against COVID-19 in patients with severe mental illness attending community mental health services in rural Greece," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 69(1), pages 208-215, February.
    2. Vaios Peritogiannis & Sofia Rousoudi & Theofanis Vorvolakos & Panagiota Gioti & Afroditi Gogou & Argiri Arre & Maria Samakouri, 2022. "A comparative study of two Mobile Mental Health Units in different catchment rural areas in Greece," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 68(2), pages 324-333, March.
    3. Kyung-Hwan Park & Eun-Sook Park & Sung-Mi Jo & Mi-Hui Seo & Young-Ok Song & Sun-Joo Jang, 2021. "Effects of a Short Emotional Management Program on Inpatients with Schizophrenia: A Pilot Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-13, May.
    4. Vaios Peritogiannis & Maria Samakouri, 2021. "Research on psychotic disorders in rural areas: Recent advances and ongoing challenges," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 67(8), pages 1046-1057, December.
    5. Maria Bakola & Vaios Peritogiannis & David Stuckler & Konstantina Soultana Kitsou & Philippos Gourzis & Thomas Hyphantis & Eleni Jelastopulu, 2023. "Who is coercively admitted to psychiatric wards? Epidemiological analysis of inpatient records of involuntary psychiatric admissions to a University General Hospital in Greece for the years 2008–201," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 69(2), pages 267-276, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:70:y:2024:i:2:p:355-363. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.