Adherence to the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities in Czech Psychiatric Hospitals: A Nationwide Evaluation Study

This study sought to evaluate the quality of care in Czech psychiatric hospitals and adherence to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Each psychiatric hospital was evaluated by a team comprising a service user, a psychiatrist, a social worker, a human rights lawyer, and a researcher, all trained in using the World Health Organization's QualityRights Toolkit. We conducted content analysis on internal documents from psychiatric hospitals, observed everyday practices, and conducted 579 interviews across public psychiatric hospitals between 2017 and 2019. We found that none of the CRPD articles as assessed by the QualityRights Toolkit was fully adhered to in Czech psychiatric hospitals. We recommend both facility- and system-level interventions to improve CRPD adherence in the Czech context and in the wider region of Central and Eastern Europe. To achieve this, substantial investments are required.

How to reduce stigmatization of people with mental illness in medical education: READ intervention

Stigmatization of people with mental illness in health care is a serious problem contributing to poor provision of health care and preventive medicine, it decreases their willingness to seek help and reduces quality of their life and life expectancy. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of the anti-stigma training READ on medical students during their psychiatric module. The training was held by a psychiatrist and a peer lecturer. This study is a part of the international project INDIGO. A total of 53 medical students participated in this study (32 in intervention group, 21 in control group). Participants completed questionnaire at baseline and at immediate follow-up. It contained scales measuring attitudes, knowledge, empathy and intergroup anxiety. The intervention group demonstrated reductions in stigma-related attitudes, improvements in mental illness knowledge and reductions in intergroup anxiety. At immediate follow-up the control group demonstrated improvements in mental illness knowledge and reductions in intergroup anxiety. Based on the results of this study common psychiatric module at the medical school (including theoretical and practical education) does not contribute to the sufficient reduction of stigma. The training READ with an involvement of peer lecturers appears to be a convenient instrument how to reduce stigmatization of people with mental illness at medical schools. The contact with people who are not in the acute state of the illness is crucial for destigmatization.