Monitoring Mental Health Systems
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According to the Call for Action issued by the Lancet Mental Health Group, “… scaling up services for people with mental disorders is the most important priority for global mental health”. In scaling up, the focus should be on providing a basic, evidence-based package of services for people with mental disorders. It is clearly necessary for countries to monitor success and challenges in such scaling up. Success should be celebrated, and serve to inspire further success or serve as a model for other countries. Challenges need to be identified early, so that the necessary strategies can be out in place to ensure that they are addressed in an appropriate manner.
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Monitoring is achieved thorough the use of indicators, which are quantitative measures that indicate progress towards meeting a target. For example, the budget for mental health care as a proportion of the total health budget may serve as an indicator for the target of investing more in mental health care. The perfect indicator is transparent; adaptable; accessible; simple; reliable; valid; amenable to measurement at the individual, local, national and international levels; and sensitive and specific with regard to the target in question - in other words, changes in the target should be reflected in changes in the indicator, and vice versa.
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