The evaluation of mental health services in war: A case register in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract

Mental health programmes in war-stricken areas aim to offer immediate help to those who most need it. Usually, there is no urge to start a systematic registration on demographic data of clients and on characteristics of interventions. Nevertheless, there is a growing necessity to do so. Structured gathering of information can help professionals to obtain insight in the age, sex and number of clients they see, in the usefulness of the interventions they offer on the basis of which they can demonstrate the importance of their work. This paper describes the pros and cons of the development and implementation of such a monitoring system in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is argued that although methodological disadvantages can be formulated against this type of evaluating services, the pros outweigh the cons, even in ongoing crises.