Access to Mental Healthcare in the 21st Century: An Evolutionary Concept Analysis.

J Am Psychiatr Nurses Assoc

Donna Felber Neff, PhD, RN, FNAP, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA.

Published: May 2022

AI Article Synopsis

  • Access to mental healthcare is crucial, especially for individuals with mental illness who face higher healthcare needs and risks, which has become even more pressing during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
  • This analysis reviewed literature on access to mental healthcare from 2010 to 2020, identifying five key models and highlighting various factors like utilization, economic impacts, and patient satisfaction as important in understanding access.
  • The concept is often underutilized in policy development, suggesting a need for updated definitions and interdisciplinary approaches to effectively address the various facets of access to mental healthcare in future research.

Article Abstract

Background: One of the most important aspects of receiving medical care is access to that care. For people with mental illness who have greater healthcare needs and are at risk for poor health outcomes, reduced access to care constitutes a crisis. While the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic continues to affect the United States, specifying what it means to have access to mental healthcare is more critical than ever.

Aims: The aims of this concept analysis are to review definitions and descriptions of access to mental healthcare in the literature and to synthesize the relevance of these findings to inform future research, theory development, policy, and practice.

Methods: The concept of access to mental healthcare was analyzed using Rodgers's evolutionary concept analysis method. CINAHL, PsycINFO, and MEDLINE were queried for peer-reviewed articles about access to mental healthcare published from January 2010 to April 2020 ( = 72). Data were reviewed for concept antecedents, attributes, consequences, surrogate, and related terms.

Results: Five models of access to mental healthcare were identified, with several antecedents and consequences: utilization, economic loss/gain, incarceration, and patient/provider satisfaction. Cross-sectional and predictive studies highlighted three interrelated attributes: clinical management, healthcare delivery, and connectedness.

Conclusions: The concept of access to mental healthcare is often used stagnantly across disciplines to create health policies, yet the concept is transformative. Future research requires up-to-date operational definitions of access to mental healthcare to target interdisciplinary approaches.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10783903211011672DOI Listing

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