Integrated care for people with long-term mental and physical health conditions in low-income and middle-income countries

Publication date: Available online 15 November 2018Source: The Lancet PsychiatryAuthor(s): Graham Thornicroft, Shalini Ahuja, Sarah Barber, Daniel Chisholm, Pamela Y Collins, Sumaiyah Docrat, Lara Fairall, Heidi Lempp, Unaiza Niaz, Vicky Ngo, Vikram Patel, Inge Petersen, Martin Prince, Maya Semrau, Jürgen Unützer, Huang Yueqin, Shuo ZhangSummaryIntegrated care is defined as health services that are managed and delivered such that people receive a continuum of health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, disease management, rehabilitation, and palliative care services, coordinated across the different levels and sites of care within and beyond the health sector and, according to their needs, throughout the life course. In this Review, we describe the most relevant concepts and models of integrated care for people with chronic (or recurring) mental illness and comorbid physical health conditions, provide a conceptual overview and a narrative review of the strength of the evidence base for these models in high-income countries and in low-income and middle-income countries, and identify opportunities to test the feasibility and effects of such integrated care models. We discuss the rationale for integrating care for people with mental disorders into chronic care; the models of integrated care; the evidence of the effects of integrating care in high-income countries and in low-income and middle-income countries; the key organisational challenges to implementing in...
Source: The Lancet Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research