A nationwide evaluation study of the quality of care and respect of human rights in mental health facilities in Ghana: results from the World Health Organization QualityRights initiative

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Author
Orrell, Martin
Keyword
Human rights
Mental health services
Quality of health care
Date
2022

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DOI
10.1186/s12889-022-13102-2
Publisher's URL
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-022-13102-2
Abstract
BACKGROUND: In 2012, Ghana ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and enacted a Mental Health Act to improve the quality of mental health care and stop human rights violations against people with mental health conditions. In line with these objectives, Ghanaian stakeholders collected data on the quality of mental health services and respect for human rights in psychiatric facilities to identify challenges and gather useful information for the development of plans aimed to improve the quality of the services offered. This study aimed to assess psychiatric facilities from different Ghanaian regions and provide evidence on the quality of care and respect of human rights in mental health services. METHODS: Assessments were conducted by independent visiting committees that collected data through observation, review of documentation, and interviews with service users, staff, and carers, and provided scores using the World Health Organization QualityRights Toolkit methodology. RESULTS: This study revealed significant key challenges in the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities principles in Ghanaian psychiatric services. The rights to an adequate standard of living and enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health were not fully promoted. Only initial steps had been taken to guarantee the right to exercise legal capacity and the right to personal liberty and security. Significant gaps in the promotion of the right to live independently and be included in the community were identified. CONCLUSIONS: This study identifies shortcomings and critical areas that the Ghanaian government and facilities need to target for implementing a human rights-based approach in mental health and improve the quality of mental health care throughout the country.
Citation
Moro, M. F., Carta, M. G., Gyimah, L., Orrell, M., Amissah, C., Baingana, F., Kofie, H., Taylor, D., Chimbar, N., Coffie, M., et al. (2022). A nationwide evaluation study of the quality of care and respect of human rights in mental health facilities in Ghana: results from the World Health Organization QualityRights initiative. BMC Public Health, 22, pp.639.
Type
Article
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12904/15329
Note
© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
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