| Abstract [eng] |
Mentally disabled people, as any other persons in the world, are human beings with their needs. These people, however, are very often stigmatized and discriminated in society what is an outcome of a centuries old exceptionally medical approach towards people with mental disability. Situation has been changing since the mid of the 20th century with the establishment of a new approach towards people with mental disability (as well as mental disorders and illness). The essence of the new approach requires treating mentally disabled people as all the other human beings, i.e. as social creatures. This leads to the integration of the provision of health care and social services in order to ensure all the needs of mentally disabled people. Mentally disabled people can get social care at home (outpatients), community, or at social care home (inpatients). Traditionally, the specialized social care homes were treated as isolated pure illness-centered organizations. Such an approach, currently, has been changing to the client-centered approach. The main aim of this new approach is to strengthen person’s potential, his psychological and social resources/capacities, to provide support while controlling the symptoms of the illness, to ensure the quality of life for people with mental disorders. It is very important, therefore, to analyze if all the needs (those of health care and social care) of mentally disabled people are satisfied in the social care homes; how the process of satisfaction of these needs is organized and implemented. This is the main problem question of the Thesis. The Padvariai social care home has been chosen for the case research. The object of the research: Satisfaction of the needs of mentally disabled people at the Padvariai social care home. The aim of the research: To analyze the satisfaction of the needs of mentally disabled people at the Padvariai social care home. The tasks of the research: 1. To analyze theoretical aspects about the processes of satisfaction of the needs of mentally disabled people. 2. To analyze the organization and implementation of the processes of satisfaction of the needs of mentally disabled people at social care homes in Lithuania. 3. To research the processes of satisfaction of the needs of mentally disabled people at the Padvariai social care home. 4. Provide the recommendations for the improvement of the processes of satisfaction of the needs of mentally disabled people at social care homes. The Thesis has been completed in the main three parts. The first part of the paper analyses theoretical aspects of the notion of mental disability, needs of mentally disabled people, and the abilities to evaluate whether these needs are satisfied or not. The analysis revealed WHO recommendations to be the main guidelines while evaluating the satisfaction. The most of recent research emphasizes the imperative to include the mentally disabled people into the satisfaction evaluation processes. The second part of the paper analyses the practical implementation of the satisfaction of the needs of mentally disabled people at social care homes in Lithuania (provision of social services and legal regulation). In the third part of the paper the research results are presented. For the purpose, interview with the administration representatives of the Padvariai social care home was conducted, as well as the survey of the personnel, the mentally disabled people themselves, and their relatives. The research proved the integrated approach in the provision of the services for the mentally disabled people to be dominant in the Padvariai social care home. All the researched groups (including the mentally disabled people themselves) emphasized that the needs are satisfied very well. According to the research results, it is possible to provide inner and outer recommendations. For the social care home managers it is possible to recommend paying more attention to the physical security of the inhabitants and the personnel, to make various activities more diverse and individualized for the different age groups. For the public policy makers it is possible to recommend to adapt the WHO guidelines nationally, to implement them into the national legal regulation, and to make the inclusion of the mentally disabled people in the surveys of the satisfaction of their needs as an imperative. |
