Abstract: Barriers to Access to Care Evaluation (BACE) by Patients at 5 Years Follow-up in the Prolonged Early Intervention, the OPUS II Trial
Poster B105, Friday, October 21, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm, Le Baron
Heidi Jensen1, Nikolai Albert1,2, Marianne Melau1, Carsten Rygaard Hjorthøj1, Merete Nordentoft1,2; 1Mental Health Center Copenhagen, 2University of Copenhagen
Purpose: This study retrospectively evaluates barriers that have delayed care seeking for patients in the specialized early intervention (SEI), OPUS. Materials and methods: The study is an explorative part of a larger RCT (OPUS II) testing prolonged specialized early intervention compared to standard two years of SEI treatment. 400 patients were recruited 1½ year into their SEI treatment and followed up 3½ year later. At the follow-up interview patients completed the self-administered scale, BACE, designed to assess barriers to mental health care for people with mental health problems. Results: At follow-up 284 patients had completed BACE. The major part of the patients was diagnosed with schizophrenia (76.1%) prior to the baseline interview. The mean duration of any self-reported mental health problem occurring prior to OPUS treatment was 38.1 months. Concern about the treatments available (e.g. medication side effects) (22.3%) and fear of being put into hospital against one´s will (20.6 %) were seen as the most highly ranked barriers to access care. The desire of wanting to solve the problem on one’s own (79.4 %) and concern about the treatments available (74.6%) were largely reported to matter to any degree. Conclusion: The most highly ranked barriers to access care are stigma-related. BACE identifies important care issues and barriers to mental health service that contributes to the explanation of the delay of help seeking. We still wait for data to study the influence of admission to hospital before OPUS.
Topic Area: Psychosocial Interventions