The WHO QualityRights Initiative and its use worldwide: A literature review

Background: To subsidize and win the fight against the violation of the human rights of people with mental disorders, an international working group has built a toolkit of quality assurance services and the exercise of human rights by users, both in low-, middle, and high-income countries. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) QualityRights Initiative has been discussed and agreed upon by government entities in many countries in its use and implementation. The program includes a service assessment kit and training modules. Aims: In this context, this article aims to synthesize, from database searches, how the QualityRights Initiative is being used worldwide. Method: This is an integrative literature review, in which 354 articles were initially obtained. After analysis, 25 articles were included in this study. Results: The results show different ways of using the initiative: service evaluation; QualityRights Initiative service evaluation and training provision; innovations on how to use the QualityRights Initiative; and QualityRights Initiative trainings. Conclusions: As the first part of the initiative, the service assessment part, was launched before the training materials, most of the articles found (17) were using it. Despite the recent launch of the training part of the initiative, five articles were found to have already conducted the training. In addition, three articles reported on the use of the initiative in other ways, such as translation and cultural adaptation of the modules; updating the document in light of the QualityRights project; and assessing whether its implementation would be effective in reducing coercive practices.