February 2023
Frontiers in Psychiatry
Jose A. Salinas-Perez1, Mencia R. Gutierrez-Colosia, Carlos R. Garcia-Alonso1, Mary Anne Furst, Hossein Tabatabaei-Jafari, Jorid Kalseth, David Perkins, Alan Rosen, Daniel Rock and Luis Salvador-Carulla
Mental healthcare systems are primarily designed to urban populations. However, the specific characteristics of rural areas require specific strategies, resource allocation, and indicators which fit their local conditions. This planning process requires comparison with other rural areas. This demonstration study aimed to describe and compare specialized rural adult mental health services in Australia, Norway, and Spain; and to demonstrate the readiness of the healthcare ecosystem approach and the DESDE-LTC mapping tool (Description and Evaluation of Services and Directories of Long Term Care) for comparing rural care between countries and across areas.