Factors contributing to psychiatric patients abscondment at Zomba Mental Hospital
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Date
2010-07-14
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Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
Abstract
Mental illness is one the leading cause of disability in most of the developing and developed countries. The impact can be reduced by actively participating in an individual treatment plan in the hospital. However, issues of psychiatric patients leaving the hospital with no authorization from hospital staff stand a global challenge considering the consequences that comes eventually.Zomba Mental Hospital is one of the psychiatric hospital in Malawi which is facing this problem. Measures have been put in place to curb the problem but still abscondment remains a challenge among male and female patients,
The purpose of this study is therefore aimed at exploring factors contributing to psychiatric
patients abscondment.Emphasis of the study will be placed on the perception of clients on
hospitalization, knowledge of clients on importance of treatment compliance, practices of service providers when providing care to clients and exploring beliefs of clients towards mental illness .
The study will be qualitative in nature and it will involve ten psychiatric clients with history of absconding and that the illness has been resolved ready for discharge. It will be conducted at Zomba Mental Hospital. Questionnaire will be administered which is aimed at collecting data and eventually analyzed manually using content analysis
The study findings will help to solicit crucial factors responsible for patient abscondment. It is also anticipated that this increased awareness will lead to collective action by policy makers and health care providers to address the problem.