Evaluation of primary care responsiveness by people with mental illness in Spain

Background The health system responsiveness is a concept developed by the World Health Organization that measures patients'' expectations for the non-medical care they receive. The aim of this study is to assess primary care responsiveness as seen by people with mental illness and to analyse the factors associated with poor responsiveness. Methods Cross-sectional descriptive study on 426 people with mental illness who had attended primary care consultations at least once in the previous 12 months. The responsiveness of the health system was determined through the short questionnaire "Multi-country Survey Study on Health and Health Systems Responsiveness". Differences in responsiveness by sociodemographic characteristics were compared through the Chi-squared test. Logistic regression identified the factors associated with poor responsiveness. Results Overall responsiveness was measured as good by 77.4% of patients, being this probability higher in the domains: dignity, confidentiality, and communication. The most valued domains by people with mental illness were prompt attention (42.4%), dignity (30.1%), and communication (17%). Only prompt attention scored high importance and poor responsiveness. In patients with an income lower than 900 euros per month and low level of studies, the probability of poor confidentiality responsiveness was multiplied by 3 and 2.7 respectively. Conclusions People with mental illness perceive good responsiveness from primary care in terms of dignity, confidentiality, and communication. Prompt attention, as the domain of greatest importance and worst valuation, should be prioritised through the implementation of organisational measures in health centres to reduce waiting times, especially in urban areas

Mental Health Patients' Expectations about the Non-Medical Care They Receive in Primary Care: A Cross-Sectional Descriptive Study

A health system's responsiveness is the result of patient expectations for the non-medical care they receive. The objective of this study was to assess mental patients' responsiveness to the health system in primary care, as related to the domains of dignity, autonomy, confidentiality, and communication. Data were collected from 215 people over the age of 18 with mental disorders, using the Multi-Country Survey Study (MCSS) developed by the World Health Organization. Of them, 95% reported a good experience regarding the dignity, confidentiality, communication, and autonomy domains. Regarding responsiveness, patients valued the dignity domain as the most important one (25.1%). Among the patients who experienced poor confidentiality, five out of seven earned less than 900 euros per month (X-2 = 10.8, p = 0.004). Among those who experienced good autonomy, 85 out of 156 belonged to the working social class (90.4%), and among those who valued it as poor (16.1%), the highest proportion was for middle class people (X-2 = 13.1, p = 0.028). The two students and 87.5% of retirees experienced this dimension as good, and most patients who valued it as poor were unemployed (43.5%) (X-2 = 13.0, p = 0.011). Patients with a household income higher than 900 euros more frequently valued responsiveness as good, regarding those domains related to communication, with OR = 3.84, 95% CI = 1.05-14.09, and confidentiality, with OR = 10.48, 95% CI = 1.94-56.59. To conclude, as regards responsiveness in primary care, the dignity domain always obtained the best scores by people with mental disorders. Low economic income is related to a poor assessment of confidentiality. Working class patients, students, and retirees value autonomy as good