Individuals with severe mental illness care given experiences and policy recommendations

This study aims to evaluate the caretaking experiences, opinions and policy recommendations on this field of the healthcare professionals (psychiatrist, social worker, psychologist, nurse, etc.) who work in community mental health center and people who have been giving care for 1 year or more to the individuals with severe mental disorder (bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and nonorganic psychosis) who have been consulting to a community mental health center at least for 6 months. The goal of this study conducted in line with this main objective is to contribute to the individuals with severe mental disorder, their families, healthcare professional working in this field and the model of community mental health center. In this study performed by using qualitative research method, in-depth interviews have been carried out with the relatives of 21 patients in Kumluca Public Hospital Community Mental Health Center and 5 healthcare professionals working in the center through a semi-structured interview form. These interviews which were recorded as audio have been transcribed and analyzed by employing the NVIVO-10 package program. As a result of the analysis, the data have been separated into two groups as "caretakers" and "healthcare professionals", and each group has been evaluated differently. The first group includes the experiences of people who provide care for patients consulting to community mental health center, their opinions on community mental health center and their policy recommendations on the field. The second group includes the experiences of healthcare professionals working in the center that they acquired while working with the patients and their relatives in the community mental health center, their opinions on their professional roles and duties in the center, evaluations on the field and policy recommendations. It is considered that the results acquired in line with the research findings will benefit to the people taking care of individuals with severe mental disorders, healthcare professionals working in this field and community mental health service model. Keywords:Individual with severe mental disorder, community mental health center, caretaker, experience, healthcare professionals