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Issues regarding the delivery of early intervention psychiatric services to the South Asian population in England

  • Mark Agius
    ,
  • A. Talwar
    ,
  • Suzanne Murphy
    ,
  • Rashid Zaman
  • University of Cambridge
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Sustainable Development Goals

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
    SDG 3 Good Health and Well

Abstract

Introduction: Little research has been done to ascertain how patients and families of South Asian origin access and use early intervention mental health services today. The aim of this retrospective study is to gain a better understanding of how well South Asian patients engage with standard psycho-social interventions. Subjects and Methods: In June 2003 an audit was conducted amongst 75 patients from different ethnic groups in Luton. Measures of engagement with mental health services included; number of missed outpatient appointments over one year and compliance with medication regimes. Results: The results of this audit showed that South Asian patients are more likely to miss appointments and refuse to take medication in comparison to their Caucasian or Afro- Caribbean counter-parts. Further analysis revealed that the Bangladeshi subgroup had missed more appointments and had a greater proportion of medication refusal in comparison to the other Asian subgroups. Conclusions: These results support the pioneering work by Dr Robin Pinto in the 1970s he observed that Asian patients perceive and utilise mental health services in a different way compared to the Caucasian population. The observations from our study depict the difficulties in engaging ethnic minority patients into existing services. Hence we argue tha

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 266-269

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Psychiatria Danubina (Volume 22, Issue 2)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 01/06/2010

Publication status

Published - 01/06/2010

ISSN

0353-5053

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/227159
  • Scopus: 77954356279

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