Mental health services in Bahrain: current structure and future directions

A review of the current psychiatric services in the state of Bahrain is made with an attempt at projecting the necessary increase in the number of psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses and inpatient beds as well as the necessary services to meet the increased population by the year 2000 using the guidelines of the Royal College of Psychiatrists White Paper [1977] coupled with WHO projections [1979]. It was recommended that the number of psychiatrists doubled; while an 80% increase in the number of psychiatric nurses was deemed necessary, the number of beds has to increase by 200. In addition, psychiatric training of family physicians and exp and ing psychiatric services at the primary care level was needed. Development of Bahraini nursing staff and other allied health care staff level as social workers was planned. The plan for meeting such dem and s and an alternate route for future developments was discussed

Profile of the psychiatric in-patient population in Bahrain, 1983-1987

A retrospective analysis of admissions to the Psychiatric Hospital in Bahrain during the period 1983- 1987, was carried out by examining the case notes. The data analysed included socio-demographic variables, source of referral, diagnostic categories, and the relationship between the above mentioned variables. Males constituted 70.5% of patients; singles, 64.3%; and those under the age of 34 years, 70.4%. The most common diagnostic category according to ICD-9 was schizophrenic illness [31.8%], followed by affective disorders [20.1%], with drug dependence [19.5%] ranking third. The smallest frequencies were neurotic disorders [0.9%] and organic psychiatric disorders [0.6%]. We compared our findings with those in developing and industrialised countries. Our results are similar to those in developing countries and different from those in industrialised ones. We have discussed the possible sociocultural factors contributing to those differences