Barriers to Access to Care Evaluation

• Autor(a) principal: Dionísio, Rita Ferreira
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/10777
• topic: Barreiras; Cuidados de Saúde Mental; Doenças Mentais; Escalas de Graduação Psiquiátrica; Saúde Mental; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Médicas::Ciências da Saúde::Medicina

Introduction: Despite the rising prevalence of mental illness, studies show that there is a delay in the access to mental health care. This delay can be due to many factors that have been studied. The aim of this study is to validate an instrument in Portugal that identifies the main barriers to seeking mental healthcare in patients with a mental illness so that it is possible to find strategies to overcome them. Methods: A translated version of Barriers to Access to Care Evaluation (BACE-3) was included in a survey that was filled in by patients with mental illness attending appointments in primary and specialized care. Other scales were included, such as Illness and Help-Seeking Behavior Scale (IHSBS), an adaptation of the 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-SP) and the Stigma Scale (SS). Results: The sample consisted of 202 participants. We obtained a Cronbach’s a of 0.95 both for all the BACE-3 items and the treatment stigma subscale. BACE-3 and its subscales presented a significant positive correlation with the SS with correlation coefficients of 0.57 (p < 0.001), 0.66 (p < 0.001) and 0.42 (p < 0.001), respectively. A negative significant correlation was found between the physical health component of SFSP scale, and the BACE-3 scale (rs = -0.23, p = 0.006), the stigma-related (rs = -0.16, p = 0.043), and the non-stigma related items (rs = -0.26, p = 0.001). Regarding the psychological health component of the SF-SP scale, a significant negative correlation was found, with BACE-3 (rs = -0.22, p = 0.009) and with stigma-related items (rs = -0.21, p = 0.009). Discussion: The scale being studied showed good validity. However, due to the small sample size, further studies will be needed to do a test-retest evaluation. Conclusion: The European Portuguese version of BACE-3 scale effectively evaluates the main barriers to access to mental healthcare in people with mental illness.