Mental Health Professionals' Perception of Respect for Human Rights and Organizational Well-Being in Three Countries of South America.

The respect for human rights in mental health care services significantly contributes to organizational well-being and is evolving into an actual benchmark of quality standards. This study assesses the perception of the respect for human rights for users and staff, as well as organizational and job satisfaction among mental health professionals in three South American countries, through the well-being at work and respect for human rights (WWRR) questionnaire and assesses whether there are significant differences. Seven mental health facilities in Argentina, Colombia, and Peru were involved in this observational study. The sample comprised 310 mental health professionals. The three countries exhibited differences in WWRR, particularly in the staff's satisfaction with resources for care (η2 = 0.166) and staff's satisfaction with organizational aspects (η2 = 0.113). Colombia had the lowest scores in these factors but the highest in the perception of the respect for human rights for users and staff, although this difference did not reach a statistical significance. Despite the progress made in recent years towards coercion-free medical standards and an increased focus on mental health polices in Latin American countries, there is a need to enhance the quality standards of mental health services, recognizing the value that the respect for human rights holds for the organizational well-being of both mental health users and professionals.

Respect for human rights as a component of organisational well-being: factor structure analysis in three countries of Latin America.

People with psychosocial disabilities are often discriminated against and experience violations of their human rights. With the QualityRights program, World Health Organisation highlights that one of element founding the quality of services is the respect for users' rights, in the belief that there is no quality of care without respect for human rights and vice versa. To date, studies explored the issue mainly in Europe. In this sense, the purpose of the study is to verify if the perception of respect for patients' rights is a component of organisational well-being for mental health workers in three countries of Latin America (Argentina, Colombia, Peru). A random sample representative of professionals working in three mental healthcare networks in Argentina, Colombia, and Peru was enrolled (n = 310). Each health worker completed a questionnaire on sociodemographic data and the Well-Being at work and respect for human rights (WWRR). The WWRR consists of seven items on satisfaction at work, beliefs about users' satisfaction in received care, the satisfaction of work's organisation, respect of users' and staff's human rights, adequacy of resources, and perceived needs of resources in the mental health service. The principal components analysis of the instrument was carried out with Varimax rotation and Kaiser normalisation (including all components with Eigen value > 1). The total explained variance was 67.2%. Item 6 saturated in one single factor, and the first five items saturated in factor 1 with factor loadings ranging from 0.52 to 0.86. Parallel test suggested a one-factor structure as acceptable. The results show in three countries of Latin America that the more workers perceive that the human rights of users are respected, the more satisfied they are of own work. This article confirms previous observations in Italy, North Macedonia, Tunisia and Palestine.

Depression in Sardinian immigrants in Argentina and residents in Sardinia at the time of the Argentinian default (2001) and the Great Recession in Italy (2015).

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study is to measure in two samples of Sardinian immigrants in Buenos Aires and representatives of the population in Sardinia the prevalence of depressive symptoms at the time of an economic crisis in Sardinia and to compare these results with those collected at the time of a similar crisis in Argentina more than 10 years before. METHODS: Observational study. The associations of Sardinian immigrants in Buenos Aires provided the lists of families of Sardinian origin. A random sample of one fifth of registered families was selected. The sample of a study carried out in Sardinia was used as the control. The results were compared with those of the previous study performed in 2001-2002. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ9) was used for the screening of depression. RESULTS: The Sardinian immigrants show a lower rate of scoring positively on PHQ9 (i.e. less risk of being depressed) and reach statistical significance after standardization (8.7% vs. 13.1%, P = 0.046). Young women (≤40) are at higher risk. On the contrary, the risk of depression was higher in Sardinian immigrants in Argentina during the 2001-2002 crises. CONCLUSION: The study indicates a risk for depressive episodes linked to the fallout of the economic crisis (in Argentina in 2001-2002, in Sardinia in 2015) and specifically more in females than in males. Due to the associated socio-demographic risk factors, these results could be interpreted as due to an increase in non-bipolar depression.