Social Sustainability in Mental Healthcare

In a series of very interesting articles in the most recent issue of BJPsych International, Dr Daniel Maughan and others consider the theme of social sustainability in mental healthcare.

The authors discuss societal support for treatments as an important aspect of social sustainability, and how it can affect the use of mental health treatments and how it can be even more influential than a scientific evidence base. They write that sustaining the provision of evidence-based treatments is dependent on support for their continued use from the principle groups in society – patients, professionals and the wider public.

To ensure ongoing support from patients, their anticipations, experiences, and reflections on treatment need to be understood and evaluated, and treatments need to meet them.

To ensure ongoing support from professionals, adequate recruitment and training must be maintained (vital in mental health, a poorly recruited profession with high levels of stress).

Lastly, the support of the wider public is affected by stigma, perceptions around safety/dangerousness, mental health literacy levels and ethics. In relation to this, the authors consider the controversy surrounding ECT and how, despite being an effective evidence-based treatment, its use is dwindling, perhaps due to public perceptions negatively impacting on its social sustainability. 

The journal is free to access and can be found here: 

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/usefulresources/publications/journals/internat…

The current issue is not yet available online but will hopefully be shortly.