Decision Making in Psychiatric Reform: A Case Study of the Czech Experience

Hudson Christopher G. and Dragomirecka Eva
Additional contact information
Hudson Christopher G.: Professor Emeritus, School of Social Work, Salem State University, Salem, MA USA
Dragomirecka Eva: Department of Social Work, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

Central European Journal of Public Policy, 2019, vol. 13, issue 2, 15-27

Abstract: This study examines the initial impact of a broadly participatory planning process in the Czech Republic during 2016–2017, aimed at both reducing inpatient care and expanding community mental health systems, on policy and programmatic decision making. A central focus of the study involves the trade-offs between and efforts to integrate shared decision making with evidence-based planning methods within the context of a national psychiatric reform strategy, particularly one involving a former Soviet bloc state.Given the uniqueness of the Czech experience, an exploratory case study methodology is used, one involving ten interviews with key informants and examination of a wide variety of documents. Results include the development of broad new decision and oversight structures, and the initial implementation of community mental health services. The nation faces some of the same trade-offs found elsewhere, such as in the United States, between an inclusive participatory process, and one that systematically incorporates empirical rational and evidence and best practices within bounded parameters.Implications for new psychiatric deinstitutionalization initiatives are identified, including development of a national mental health authority, a professional workforce, new funding strategies, multi-level service coordination, mechanisms to assure transparency, among others.

Keywords: Psychiatric reform; psychiatric deinstitutionalization; community mental health; participatory decision making; policy development; bounded rationality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2478/cejpp-2019-0007 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrs:cejopp:v:13:y:2019:i:2:p:15-27:n:2

DOI: 10.2478/cejpp-2019-0007

Access Statistics for this article

Central European Journal of Public Policy is currently edited by Martin Nekola

More articles in Central European Journal of Public Policy from Sciendo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().