Background: While mental and substance use disorders are common worldwide, the treatment gap is enormous\nin low and middle income countries. Primary health care is considered to be the most important way for people to\nget mental health care. Cambodia is a country with a long history of war and has poor mental health and limited\nresources for care. The aim of this study was to conduct a situational analysis of the mental health services in the rural\ndistrict of Lvea Em, Kandal Province, Cambodia.\nMethods: A cross-sectional situational analysis was done to understand the mental health situation in Lvea Em District\ncomparing it with the national one. The Programme for improving mental health care (PRIME) tool was used to\ncollect systematic information about mental health care from 14 key informants in Cambodia. In addition, a separate\nquestionnaire based on the PRIME tool was developed for the district health care centres (12 respondents). Ethical\napproval was obtained from the National Ethics Committee for Health Research in Cambodia.\nResults: Mental health care is limited both in Lvea Em District and the country. Though national documents containing\nguidelines for mental health care exist, the resources available and health care infrastructure are below what\nis recommended. There is no budget allocated for mental health in the district; there are no mental health specialists\nand the mental health training of health care workers is insufficient. Based on the limited knowledge from the\nrespondents in the district, mental health disorders do exist but no documentation of these patients is available.\nRespondents discussed how community aspects such as culture, history and religion were related to mental health.\nThough there have been improvements in understanding mental health, discrimination and abuse against people\nwith mental health disorders seems still to be present.\nConclusions: There are very limited mental health care services with hardly any budget allocated to them in Lvea Em\nDistrict and Cambodia overall. There is dire need for scaling up and integrating mental health into primary health care\nto improve the population�s access to and quality service of Cambodian mental care.
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