Investigation on the current situation of mental health institutions in Guangdong / 中华医院管理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To find out about the current situation of mental health institutions in Guangdong. Methods An investigation via self-made questionnaires was made on the current situation of 62 mental health institutions in the province and a comparison was made of 22 mental hospitals between now and four years ago. Results Throughout the province, there were 9901 psychiatric beds, 1236 psychiatric doctors and 1909 psychiatric nurses, averaging respectively 1.16 beds, 0.15 doctors and 0.22 nurses per 10 thousand people. The bed utilization ratio was mostly 82.00% and only 12.00% of the mental health institutions adopted open management. A comparison of the 22 mental hospitals between now and 4 years ago showed that the numbers of hospital beds, doctors, doctors with associate senior professional tides and above, ECG machines, computers, hospital total income per year, and monthly charges for hospitalization had increased while the area of workplaces, the bed utilization ratio, the average number of daily outpatient visits, the average number of daily outpatient psychological consultations, and equipment other than ECG machines and computers remained unchanged and government funding had decreased. Couclusion The major problems with the mental health institutions in the province are shortage and lack of balance in the allocation of mental health resources, backwardness in the modes of management, difficulty in internal development, and reduction of government input.