Community Mental Health Service Crisis Line Staffing Ratios and Police Referral Dispositions in Ugandan District Call Centres: A Multilevel Estimation of Triage Workload Exposure
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Crisis line staffing ratios are widely assumed to shape whether callers are referred to police, but the assumption has not been formalised in a way that distinguishes triage workload exposure from caseload volume. The indicator is used as a population-level proxy for the maternal and neonatal vulnerability that crisis line triage must absorb, not as a direct measure of call-centre activity. Staffing ratios should be specified as exposure per triage-hour rather than as staff per capita, because the two specifications imply different referral dispositions at the same nominal ratio. The contribution is a formalisation of triage workload exposure that can be estimated with existing district data and that separates the staffing effect from the population-vulnerability effect. The framework is proposed for prospective estimation; no call-centre records were analysed in the present analysis.
Authors: Kintu, Wasswa, Lamwaka, Aciro
Institution: Makerere University
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7223221206