Comparative Research of the Medical Cost, The Quality of Life, The Family burden of the Mentally III before and after the Community Mental Health Service

지역사회 정신보건서비스 제공 전$\cdot$후 정신장애인의 의료비용, 삶의 질, 가족 부담감 비교연구

Community mental health management system emphasizing on the rehabilitation and the return to the community has been established and carried out for many years. The study has been demanded to prove that the decreasing rate of the recurrence of the mentally ill resulted to lower their medical costs, to enrich the quality of life, and to reduce the psychological burden of their family. This study tried to prove that the mental health services to the mentally ill which were registered in community mental health center of A city have an influence on the medical cost, the quality of their lives. the family burden. The subject group of this study were 39 home-based mentally ill patients and their 37 family members, totally 76 people registered in mental health center of A city and participated in its program. This research had been measured twice, the first before the intervention and the second after at least a year. The measuring tools in the research were the medical cost measurment tools developed by the researcher, the quality of life index by Yoo ja, Noh(1988) and the family burden by Montgonery(1985). The methods were modified and supplemented in this study. This research made use of SPSS Win 10.0. The results of this study are the same as followings. 1) There were the significant difference in the medical cost before and after the mental health service delivery. 2) The quality of lives of the mentally ill, after the mental health services delivered were significantly higher than before. 3) The family burden were significantly reduced after the delivery of community mental health services. Community mental health services brought out efficient results to the social return and rehabilitation. And these results means that the mentally ill changed highly the quality of life and their burden of family and medical cost were reduced. So the public organization and the private society should help positively the mentally ill and their family through mental health policy and social service agency to live healthy lives and to be valuable member of society.