Womens mental health needs in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the context of community mental health care

Abstract

Aim:

The aim of this paper is womens needs assessment in the new organisational concept of psychiatric care-community mental health care, which started with its implementation in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1996 immediately after the war.

Method:

This study is retrospective and analytical-descriptive. As research instrument was used the Questionnaire for womens needs assesment in mental health care, which was designed for the purpose of this study and which has been applied at two groups,homogenious according to gender. Each group was consisted from 50 female patients.

Results:

The results of this study indicated the womens needs for inovative forms of community mental health care-the opportunity to choose woman as psychiatrist and women as team members, as well as the opportunity to use separate community mental health services-for women only.

Conclusion:

The results of this study, which are in accordance with new womens community mental health care trends in USA and some Western European countries, obviously indicates the womens needs in mental health care. According to the study results, womens needs should be met in the early stage of new psychiatric care concept implementation.In the same time that would present in Bosnia and Herzegovina inovation of community mental health care, and also assure that womens mental health needs would be met at optimal way.