The OD in mental health care context of Portugal North Alentejo Region: Preliminar results.

Abstract

Open dialogue is a therapeutic intervention approach to people experiencing mental health problems and their families/social networks. The entire treatment is carried out through a whole system of meetings, gathering together everyone connected to the crisis, including the patient, their family and social network, all professional helpers and anyone else closely involved. In 2020, the DGS of the Portuguese Ministry of Health financed a national project to implemented an Open Di- alogue intervention programme in the context of Portugal North Alentejo Region. Eleven patients, 28 family members and 4 professionals were involved in the project. The number of network meetings reached 27 per month in the busiest periods. Based on a previous Italian Research Protocol (Pocobello and Sehity, 2017), quan- titative and qualitative data were collected in/and after the clinical meetings involving patients and respective families, through a multi-method approach: clinical history interview (e.g. generic research on sociodemo- graphic data, duration of untreated symptoms, reasons for requesting help, possible hospitalizations and/or treatments/therapies), professionals open dialogue diary (e.g. information on dates and meetings held like the number of meetings, length of meeting, location, family members and professionals involved), self-report scales applied every 5 sessions (e.g. CORE-OM, Evans et al., 2002a; SCL-90-R, Derogatis, 1994; GAF, Endicott, Spitzer, Fleiss, & Cohen, 1976; LSNS-6, Lubben et al., 2006). Patient/family satisfaction was assessed using a self-report scale type Likert scale of 10 points applied at the end of each meeting section. We present the first results of this project evaluation, as well as the satisfaction of those involved.