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Access to and Use of Psychiatric Services by Migrants Resettled in Northern Italy

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Abstract

The present study was conducted to describe access to and use of psychiatric services by migrants resettled in a large and well-defined catchment area. The study was conducted in a catchment area of 459,536 inhabitants in Verona, a city located in the Northeast of Italy. Using a psychiatric case register, all native and migrant individuals with a first ever psychiatric contact from 2000 to 2015 were identified. Service use data during the 12 months following first contact were collected. During the study period a total of 2610 migrants and 28,860 natives had at least one psychiatric contact. A progressive rise in the proportion of migrants seeking psychiatric care was observed, from 2.5% in 2000 to more than 14% in 2015. During the 12 months following first contact, the proportion of patients with a single consultation did not differ between resettled migrants and natives. However, migrants were more often marked users or heavy users of psychiatric services. Multivariate linear regression analyses showed that younger male individuals with psychotic disorders experienced higher psychiatric services use regardless their native or migrant condition. In a large catchment area with a well-developed community-based system of mental health care a progressive rise in the number of migrants seeking psychiatric care was observed. The pattern of service use during the 12 months after first contact was not related to nationality, suggesting the capacity of community psychiatric services to retain people in care. These findings call for the development of culturally and linguistically appropriate community psychiatric services.

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Funding

This project was supported by the “Programma Ricerca di Base 2015” of the University of Verona.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental health and Service Evaluation, Department of Neuroscience, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, Section of Psychiatry, University of Verona, Policlinico GB Rossi, Piazzale Scuro 10, 37134, Verona, Italy

    Doriana Cristofalo, Chiara Bonetto, Mario Ballarin, Francesco Amaddeo, Mirella Ruggeri, Michela Nosè & Corrado Barbui

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  1. Doriana Cristofalo
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  2. Chiara Bonetto
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  3. Mario Ballarin
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  4. Francesco Amaddeo
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  5. Mirella Ruggeri
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  6. Michela Nosè
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  7. Corrado Barbui
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Corrado Barbui.

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Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. According to the rules from the Italian Medicines Agency (available at http://www.agenziafarmaco.gov.it/sites/default/files/det_20marzo2008.pdf), retrospective studies using administrative databases do not require Ethics Committee protocol approval.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Cristofalo, D., Bonetto, C., Ballarin, M. et al. Access to and Use of Psychiatric Services by Migrants Resettled in Northern Italy. J Immigrant Minority Health 20, 1309–1316 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-018-0703-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-018-0703-z

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