Mental Health Care System in Saudi Arabia: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Best Practices

The mental health care system in Saudi Arabia has set a benchmark with the transformation of the existing system into the state-of-the-art systems, which ensures the adaption to the challenges posed by the modernisation. The paper presents the strengths and weaknesses of the mental healthcare system in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the paper presents a range of the best practices for the integration of mental healthcare into primary care.

MENTAL HEALTH

The mental health care system in Saudi Arabia has set a benchmark with the
transformation of the existing system into the state-of-the-art systems, which ensures the
adaption to the challenges posed by the modernisation (Koenig et al., 2018). The paper
presents the strengths and weaknesses of the mental healthcare system in Saudi Arabia. In
addition, the paper presents a range of the best practices for the integration of mental
healthcare into primary care.
One of the major strengths of the mental health care system in Saudi Arabia is the
establishment of the primary health care centres (PHC) to ensure the primary diagnosis and
treatment, as was encouraged by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the year 2000.
The second major strength is the increase in the number of psychiatric hospitals over the past
3 decades, including 21 speciality hospitals. The same is marked by the simultaneous
increments in the number of psychologists, psychiatric nurses, and psychiatric social workers
in the region. The specialised population has also been taken care of, which is depicted by the
21 child psychiatry clinics in the region.
Some of the weaknesses in the mental health care system of Saudi Arabia that can be
improvised are the need for the rendering of the comprehensive training to the primary health
care physicians, leading to enhancement in their knowledge and skills (Qureshi, AlHabeeb &
Koenig, 2013). In addition, the level of training for nurses is also low. The overall programs
for the primary health care physicians are infrequent. Another weakness is that as there is a
system of primary health care in Saudi Arabia in terms of the mental health, there is a risk of
prescription of antipsychotic drugs by the range of workers in the system. In addition to the
weaknesses, the other one is that there exists difficulty in terms of the adequate sustainable
funding for the programmes.
However, there lies a range of opportunities as well, in the system, which can be
exploited for the improvement of the overall mental healthcare system. This can be done by
the integration of primary care practices. The benefit of the said integration is that the
population at large can have access to the facilities in the events of the disorders (Funk,
Saraceno, Drew & Faydi, 2008). The best practices include the organisation of the workshops
to enable patients and their families to reduce the social stigma linked to mental disorders.
This can be further be aided by the counselling and education to promote the maximum
participation in the society. The next best practice can be the evaluation of the results and the
analysis of the knowledge and skills of the physicians. Accordingly, the review programmes

of the same must be framed. Another best practice is the enactment of the statutes, policies,
and plans for the development and the integration of the strong mental healthcare system
(Asarnow, Rozenman, Wiblin & Zeltzer, 2015). The whole system must be supervised, in
addition, the advice and guidance must be rendered at periodical intervals to the specialists
that are the psychiatrists, and the mental health nurses.
Thus, from the discussion in the previous parts, it can be concluded that the
integration of the primary health care and the mental health care has a range of benefits.
However, there are few weaknesses as well. The best practices for the same as listed above
must be adopted to get par the weaknesses and for the overall development in the medical
system as in case of Saudi Arabia.

References
Asarnow, J. R., Rozenman, M., Wiblin, J., & Zeltzer, L. (2015). Integrated medical-
behavioral care compared with usual primary care for child and adolescent behavioral health:
a meta-analysis. JAMA pediatrics, 169(10), 929-937.
Funk, M., Saraceno, B., Drew, N., & Faydi, E. (2008). Integrating mental health into
primary healthcare. Mental health in family medicine, 5(1), 5-8.
Koenig, H., Al Zaben, F., Sehlo, M., Khalifa, D., Al Ahwal, M., Qureshi, N., & Al-
Habeeb, A. (2018). Mental Health Care in Saudi Arabia: Past, Present and Future. Retrieved
from: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojpsych.2014.42016
Qureshi, N., AlHabeeb, A., & Koenig, H. (2013). Mental health system in Saudi
Arabia: an overview. Neuropsychiatric Disease And Treatment, 1121. doi:
10.2147/ndt.s48782