Retrospective analysis of 10 year medical board proceedings at Amanuel Hospital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2001.
The Medical board at Amanuel Psychiatric Hospital assesses mental disability. Analysis of the board's proceedings from 1985--1994 is discussed in this paper. The proceeding record showed that the board has assessed 1963 during the ten-year period, but analysis was done only on 1854 cases because of incomplete information. Over 80 % of the cases assessed by the board were males and 96% were below the age of 50 years. Teachers were presented to the board more often than other occupational groups. Over 50% of the cases presented to the board had psychotic illness and 12% had no mental illness. There was a decline in the number of cases presented to the board in the later part of the ten year period (Chi-square for trend=206.36, P<001). Request for assessment of fitness accounted for 79% of all requests presented to the board. Positive recommendation to the request was given to 66% of the cases and transfer from one working place to another was the most frequently given recommendation. It appears that assessment of disability used to be one of the major activities of the psychiatrists at Amanuel Hospital. Creating conducive working environment to the employees, putting some effort to change the attitude of employers toward the mentally disturbed worker and training health workers working in the clinics of enterprises/organizations on basic counseling principles are recommmended to minimize the flow of cases to Amanuel Hospital for this purpose.
Fekadu
Daniel
D
Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AZ, UK. spjudwg@iop.kcl.ac.uk
Alem
Atalay
A
D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002568:Certification; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D004651:Employment; D005002:Ethiopia; D005260:Female; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011287:Prejudice; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013997:Time Factors