South Asian person-centered psychiatric healthcare projects: an exploratory overview

Abstract

Background: Nowadays with better treatment modalities at our disposal, there has been an improvement in the acceptance of the persons with psychiatric disorder in the community, although a lot still remains to be achieved. Most institutions still follow an authoritarian approach to provide care for these patients, without particular concern for the latter’s opinion. There is a need to integrate the patient and people close to him/her in planning the treatment pathway in order to achieve better compliance, regular follow-up and patient satisfaction, in accordance with the principles of person-centered care. Aims: The purpose of this paper was to perform a review of published literature in English on person-centered psychiatric care/projects and related topics from south Asian countries. Methods: A review of the literature on person-centered psychiatric care/projects until December 2010, published in English was conducted with following keywords: person/client-centered planning/care/project/medicine. Due to the scarcity of literature, no exclusion/inclusion criteria were taken into account in this exploratory overview. Result and Conclusion: Four published studies of relevance to the topic of study were identified and three nongovernmental organizations practising principles of person-centeredness partly and/or fully were identified. In countries of south Asia, the idea of person-centered care is at a primitive level, with no/minimal encouragement from Government agencies. Fertile ground for applicability of person-centered projects and barriers to it are both present. There is a need for further research.