Browsing by Author "yitayih, Sewbesew"

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    Inpatient Forensic psychiatry Service and Assessment outcome at Amanuel Specialized Mental Hospital.
    (Addis Ababa University, 2017-12) yitayih, Sewbesew; Dr. Lemeneh, Asnake
    Background: -Offenders who have mental illness present complex challenges for public policy and the criminal justice system. The identification, assessment, processing and treatment of these mentally ill offenders are the responsibility of forensic psychiatric services in collaboration with the justice system and other legal agencies. Forensic psychiatric services in Ethiopia has been provided by Amanuel Hospital for the entire country for many years, but there has not been a systematic study conducted to see how the service is going and to understand the challenges and the progress of the service. Objective: - To assessthe Forensic psychiatry Service and assessment outcome of the alleged offenders who had been admitted to Forensic unit at Amanuel Specialized Mental Hospital. Methods: - A retrospective study was conducted involving those who were assessed in the inpatient forensic psychiatry unit at ASMH between January 01/2015 and June 30/2017.Data extraction sheet were used to collect information for the study. All cases assessed by the forensic case team during the study period were included in the study. The data sheets were coded and data entry, cleaning and analysis were done using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.bivariate and Multivariate logistic regression was done to see sociodemographic determinants of insanity and murder. Results: - One hundred and twelve cases were included in the study. Of these, 79.5% were males. The mean age of the cases was 33 years and Most of the accused (52.7%) were single. In terms of region, 36 (32.1%) were from Oromia, 29 (25.9%) from Amhara, 30 (26.8%) from Addis Ababa and from Tigray 8 (7.1%). Around 60% were charged with murder, followed by attempted murder (13.4%), and sexual violence (6.3%). Only (60.7%) of cases got a neuropsychiatric diagnosis. Of these, Diagnosed with schizophrenia were in (17.6%) and the same number of cases got a diagnosis of by bipolar I disorder (176%) and comorbid substance use problem (17.6%). Twenty percent of cases were found not criminally responsible (because of insanity). The majority of cases (90.2%) were found fit to stand trial and from all cases only (4.5 %) of cases are unfit to stand trial and not criminally responsible. Conclusion: - There is a huge gap between the service at Amanuel and the forensic psychiatric service in another setup with regard to the following factors; the amount of information available to help the expert‟s decision, the delay to get assessment report, number staff working in the forensic case team and the collaboration between the forensic psychiatry case team and the legal system. Recommendation: - Early diagnosis, treatment and follow up is very important for those having mental illness so as to prevent criminal activities associated with severe mental illness. Decentralize the service with the training of mental health professionals in the area of forensic psychiatry will solve some problems associated with the service.