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Despite the substantial body of international research exploring the effects of forced migration on mental health and the obstacles faced by refugee cohorts in accessing mental health services, there is a lack of in-depth studies specifically focusing on Bosnian refugees in Australia – one of the largest ethnic groups of displaced peoples. This qualitative investigation seeks to convey the experiences of mental health services by five Bosnian refugees in Melbourne, highlighting perceived pathways and barriers to service utilisation. This study aims to address two primary research questions: firstly, what characterises the experiences of Bosnian refugees in Australia when accessing mental health services? Secondly, what are the main barriers encountered by this population when seeking mental health services?

This study used qualitative inquiry and in-depth interviews to investigate the experiences of Bosnian refugees with mental health services in Australia. Data was collected through face-to-face interviews with five Melbourne-based Bosnian refugees who had previously accessed mental health services. Participants were recruited from community groups or associations using purposive sampling. Thematic analysis was used.

Key themes were revealed, such as the crucial role of social and community services, preferences for individual vs group therapy, potential re-traumatisation from therapeutic engagement, distrust of government-run mental health services and concerns regarding psychopharmaceutical prescription practices. Addressing barriers to mental health service access necessitates a multifaceted approach, including flexible social and community service support, an increased number of co-ethnic professionals and a recognition of cultural variations for effective service provision. Implementing these strategies can enhance help-seeking behaviours, provide culturally appropriate mental health services and improve the experiences of Bosnian refugees in Australia.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to qualitatively explore how Bosnian refugees in Melbourne perceived the adequacy and availability of mental health services upon arrival to Australia. They are a large and potentially vulnerable community, due to experiences of war trauma and dislocation from country of origin. A lack of understanding regarding how this cohort engage with mental health services can lead to persistent inequities and ineffective service provision. This study identifies unique experiences and perspectives of Bosnian refugee participants, including distrust of government-run mental health services, and concerns regarding psychopharmaceutical prescription practices. This research is expected to contribute positively to the discourse on mental health service provision for Bosnian refugees and wider refugee communities in Australia.

This paper aims to investigate research activity on barriers for minority and underserved groups to access and use mental health services.

Using Scopus, relevant articles published from 1993 to 2022 were collected. The final list included 122 articles.

Research hotspots included cultural and ethnic barriers, obstacles encountered by LGBTQ+ individuals, challenges faced by refugees and immigrants, limited access in rural areas and barriers affecting special populations. The top 10 cited articles focused on language barriers, cultural stigma, gender-specific challenges and systemic obstacles. New research avenues included the role of technology in overcoming barriers to access mental health services.

Policymakers and practitioners can use this knowledge to develop targeted interventions, enhance cultural competence, reduce stigma, improve rural access and provide LGBTQ+-affirming care, ultimately promoting equitable mental health care.

This research underscores the importance of addressing mental health service barriers for equity and social justice. Neglecting these disparities can worsen mental health, increase health-care costs, reduce productivity and lead to higher social welfare expenses, perpetuating disadvantages.

This paper's uniqueness lies in its comprehensive analysis of barriers and facilitators to mental health service utilization among minority and underserved groups. It serves as a basis for developing evidence-based strategies to improve service accessibility and enhance the well-being of marginalized communities.

This study aims to construct a mental health service system for middle school students in the post-COVID-19 era with the framework of Six Sigma DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve and control) and analyze the influencing factors of the mental health service system to study the implementation strategies of quality-oriented mental health services in middle schools.

This study was conducted in Tianjin, China, from September to November 2022, and 350 middle school students from Tianjin Public Middle School were selected as subjects. A questionnaire survey was used to collect data. In this study, the Six Sigma DMAIC method, sensitivity analysis method, exploratory factor analysis and principal component analysis were used to analyze the mental health services provided to middle school students.

Based on the Six Sigma DMAIC framework, this study indicates that the contribution rate of the mental health service process factor is the largest in the post-COVID-19 era. The mental health cultivation factor ranks second in terms of its contribution. Mental health quality and policy factors are also important in the construction of middle school students’ mental health service system. In addition, the study highlights the importance of parental involvement and social support in student mental health services during the post-COVID-19 era.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, a study on middle school students’ mental health in the post-Covid-19 era has not yet been conducted. This study developed a quality-oriented mental health system and analyzed the influencing factors of mental health for middle school students based on data analysis and the Six Sigma DMAIC method.

Public health experts and advocates have long raised concerns about the pandemic preparedness of prison systems worldwide – an issue that became increasingly salient at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. People in prison experience poorer health outcomes compared to the general population, making timely access to adequate health services in prison critical for their health and wellbeing. This study aims to identify the extent of the literature on initial changes in mental health and substance use services for people in prison during the COVID-19 pandemic, summarize and synthesize the findings and identify areas in need of further study.

The authors conducted a review of the academic literature published internationally in English between 2019 and December 1, 2020 to describe the disruptions and adaptations to mental health and substance use services in prisons during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors found that mental health and substance use services in prisons around the world were widely disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic – predominantly consisting of the complete suspension of services, discontinuation of transfers to off-site treatment sites and limitations on service capacity. Adaptations ranged from virtual service delivery and changes to treatment dispensation processes to information sessions on overdose prevention.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first review to examine the nature and extent of the literature on delivery of mental health and substance use services in prisons during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The refugee journey is fraught with challenges before, during and after resettlement. There is a critical need for mental health support upon arrival, and refugees face language, cultural and logistical barriers. Arts-based therapies are a promising approach to mitigating such barriers. The purpose of this study was to elicit professional stakeholder perspectives on mental health challenges among refugees, the value of arts-based programs and future directions.

The authors conducted three 90-min focus groups with 19 professional stakeholders in North Carolina, USA. This included mental health professionals, professors and community services/resettlement workers. Participants were identified from professional networks and snowball sampling. Each group was held by videoconference, audio recorded and transcribed. Data were analyzed through a team-based approach using applied thematic qualitative analysis.

Interviewees described a need for targeted, culturally compatible mental health services for refugee families, including trauma-informed, family-focused services with language interpretation. Arts-based therapies were viewed as highly acceptable and culturally responsive approaches for understanding distress and building resilience and less stigmatizing than traditional mental health services. Services in schools and community settings would further reduce stigma and minimize logistical barriers. Participants identified needing strong, culturally sensitive assessment tools to measure treatment progress as a key future direction.

The study offers novel insights into the value of arts-based approaches and considerations for program development. The next phase of the project will obtain the perspectives of refugee parents and children to understand client preferences for arts-based therapies.

This paper aims to provide new insights into and offer potential solutions to the challenges encountered by mental health services working with remote, rural or underserved communities in the UK.

In this paper, the authors reflect on the utility of integrating conventional clinical approaches, with preventive care and empowering work within the community, to provide culturally sensitive and accessible mental health services. The authors describe an example of community intervention from a mental health service in Ghana designed to enhance reach within remote and rural communities and identify potential lessons for practice in the UK.

The partnership between community mental health services and the rural communities, including families and existing social frameworks, applies collaborative care to overcome the lack of resources and facilitate the acceptability of mental health services to the local population. There are a series of important lessons from this experience including the importance of understanding the culture of a community to optimise reach and the importance of working IN the community and WITH the community.

This paper is novel because it provides learning from a model of care applied in the global south that has potential for implementation with underserved populations in the UK. The authors suggest a reframing of the notion of community care to encompass existing frameworks of community, not merely a biomedical conceptualisation.

This study aims to explore how young people in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands and Croatia, experienced leaving CAMHS and identified a range of factors impeding optimal discharge or transition to adult mental health services (AMHS).

Interviews about discharge or transition planning, including what information was provided about their ongoing mental health needs, undertaken with 34 young people aged 17–24, all previous or current attendees of CAMHS. Some interviews included accounts by parents or carers. Data were thematically analysed.

A number of previously well-documented barriers to a well-delivered discharge or transition were noted. Two issues less frequently reported on were identified and further discussed; they are the provision of an adequately explained, timely and appropriately used diagnosis and post-CAMHS medication management. Overall, planning processes for discharging or transitioning young people from CAMHS are often sub-optimal. Practice with regard to how and when young people are given a diagnosis and arrangements for the continuation of prescribed medication appear to be areas requiring improvement.

Study participants came from a large cohort involving a wide range of different services and health systems in the first pan-European study exploring the CAMHS to adult service interface. Two novel and infrequently discussed issues in the literature about young people’s mental health transitions, diagnosis and medication management were identified in this cohort and worthy of further study.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the characteristics of all the referrals to the forensic MHIDD service over the past five years and to compare these characteristics to the cohort of service users attending the three general MHID services based in Dublin which are Service 1, Service 2 and Service 3.

This is a cross-sectional study of adults attending the three generic MHID services and the national forensic MHIDD service. The medical files of service users attending the MHID services were reviewed, and data such as age, gender, level of intellectual disability and psychiatric diagnoses were extracted and compiled into a database. The forensic MHIDD service has since its inception maintained a database of all referrals received and reviewed. The characteristics data needed were extracted from the forensic MHIDD database. All these data were then analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).

The majority of the three MHID service users were in the moderate to profound range of intellectual disability, while the majority of the cases assessed by forensic MHIDD had normal IQ, borderline IQ and mild intellectual disability with 66.1%. The prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorder, schizophrenia and emotionally unstable personality disorder in the forensic MHIDD is comparable to the three MHID services. The prevalence of depression, bipolar affective disorder (BPAD), anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is higher in the three MHID services than in the forensic MHIDD service.

The FHMIDD received referrals at a greater level of overall ability, with two-thirds of the service users having mild intellectual disability to normal IQ. The prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorder such as ASD and schizophrenia is comparable between the forensic MHIDD and the three MHID services. There is a higher prevalence of depression, BPAD, anxiety disorder and OCD in the three MHID services as compared to the forensic MHIDD service.

Despite the long-established importance of infant mental health, internationally this has not been mirrored in the provision of infant mental health services. Within Scotland in the UK, there has been significant recent government investment in developing infant mental health services. However, existing research identifies a massive knowledge and skills gap that could create barriers to implementation. This study aims to use qualitative methods to consider the views of relevant professional stakeholders on education and training within infant mental health.

The authors completed semi-structured interviews with 14 professional stakeholders working in a health board in Scotland. This study used purposive sampling to include a broad range of professionals across health and social care services and analysed the resulting data using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) methodology. This study adopted a reflexive stance throughout, including the research team interviewing each other as part of the process.

Within the theme of education and training, we identified four sub-themes. These included roles for public health and societal education, training for parents, training for professionals and increasing professionals’ experience of infant mental health.

The issues identified are relevant in any area of the UK or internationally in considering the role of education and training in developing and maintaining new infant mental health services. Further research with families and with wider groups of professional stakeholders would be of further benefit.

The reasons for and experiences during migration, as well as additional stressors in the new host country, may give rise to mental health problems and additional need for public services. The purpose of the study was to investigate factors related to service utilization among newly arrived refugee youth.

Cross-sectional data were gathered in Sweden where 37 youth aged between 19 and 23 reported on factors related to service utilization, encompassing health-care and support services in school. These factors included predisposition (demographic), need (migration status and mental wellbeing) and enablement (living situation). Service utilization was estimated using multiple logistic regression analysis.

About a fourth of the sample used psychosocial services. Use of general support was more common. Neither predisposing, need nor enabling factors were associated with the use of psychosocial or general health-related services.

Self-reported factors related to use of health-related services have previously not been investigated for refugee youth, which is important in assuring access to appropriate services for this exposed youth population.