Mental health conditions remain a significant cause of disability in the Arab World. Palestinians are predominantly at a higher risk for mental health problems due to their chronic exposure to political violence, prolonged displacement, and others as limited professional, educational, financial opportunities and mental health services. Schizophrenia is an overwhelming mental illness that affects nearly one percent of the various populations throughout the world. Studies have shown patients with schizophrenia die prematurely and have lower life expectancy compared to the general population. Moreover, antipsychotic medications and client's lifestyle play a significant role in increased morbidity and mortality in these patients. The present study willingly undertakes a literature review on schizophrenia in the context of mental health services in Palestine.

Collaboration and partnership are key issues for modern health systems seeking to implement quality integrated care that meets the needs of the population. The Carrefour Communautaire-Institutionnel-Usagers (Connecting Community organisations-Institutions-Users, CCIU), involving community- and institution-based mental health workers, carers and users, is an innovative normative integrated care group (group for shared values, culture and vision) established by the Canadian Mental Health Association-Montreal Branch. A programme evaluation approach was used to conduct a logic analysis of the CCIU in order to understand the relationships between its resources, activities and outcomes, build a common understanding and, allow for its replication.

Mental health service providers are increasingly interested in patient perspectives. We examined rates and predictors of patient-reported satisfaction and perceived helpfulness in a cross-national general population survey of adults with 12-month DSM-IV disorders who saw a provider for help with their mental health.

Integration of mental healthcare into non-specialist settings is advocated to expand access to care for people with severe mental disorders (SMD) in low-income countries. However, the impact upon equitable access for disenfranchised members of society has not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to (1) estimate contact coverage for SMD of a new service in primary healthcare (PHC) in a rural Ethiopian district, and (2) investigate equity of access for rural residents, women, people with physical impairments and people of low socio-economic status.

This study examines the reliability and validity of the Portuguese version of the Empowerment Scale (ES) to be used in the community/psychosocial mental health field. Authors also reviewed the properties of the development and cross-cultural adaptation of the ES. Because mental health services are required to encourage empowerment and recovery-oriented interventions, adequate empowerment-oriented outcome measures are needed to evaluate services and study interventions across countries.

Children and adolescents who live in resource-limited communities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) experience significant mental health problems, including behavioral problems. In SSA, one of the most significant impediments to expanding services is a scarcity of mental health specialists. Task-shifting can effectively solve the mental health care gap in low-resource settings, yet it is underutilized in child and adolescent mental health. Moreover, the experiences of lay providers are understudied in global mental health, despite their potential impact on intervention effectiveness. In this study, we examined the experiences of community health workers and parent peers with the task-shifting of an evidence-based family strengthening intervention in Uganda.

While there are mental health treatment programs for children and young people in secure settings (i.e., secure treatment programs) in many countries, there is a lack of transparency and consistency across these that causes confusion for stakeholders and challenges for the design and delivery of high-quality, evidence-based programs. This systematic review addresses two questions: What do mental health treatment programs for children and young people in secure community settings look like across jurisdictions? What is the evidence underlying the various components of these programs?

With the growth of information technology, there is a need for the evaluation of cost-effective means of monitoring and support of field workers involved in large epidemiological surveys.

Globally, mental health problems are a growing public health concern. Resources and services for mental disorders are disproportionately low compared to disease burden. In order to bridge treatment gaps, The Systematic Medical Appraisal, Referral and Treatment (SMART) Mental Health Project was implemented across 12 villages in West Godavari district of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. This paper reports findings from a process evaluation of feasibility and acceptability of the intervention that focused on a mental health services delivery model to screen, diagnose and manage common mental disorders (CMDs).

Pathways to care are actions and strategies employed by individuals in order to get help for health-related distress and the related processes of care providers. On several systematic reviews regarding pathways to mental health care (PMHC), studies regarding South American countries were not present. This review synthesizes qualitative and quantitative research about PMHC in Brazil.

The World Mental Health-Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) 3.0, originally in English, is a fully-structured interview designed for the assessment of mental disorders. Although Arabic translations of CIDI from countries like Lebanon and Iraq exist, a Modern Standard Arabic translation was developed to suit the Saudi population. While the translation model used in the present paper has been used to translate instruments in Asian and European languages, there is no study to the best of our knowledge which has used this specific model to translate a validated instrument from English to Arabic.

The World Mental Health surveys have been known to apply high standards of quality control, but few studies have been published to document this. Furthermore, the effectiveness of quality control has rarely been reported in the Middle East.

Substantial strides have been made around the world in reforming mental health systems by shifting away from institutional care towards community-based services. Despite an extensive evidence base on what constitutes effective care for people with severe mental ill-health, many people in Europe do not have access to optimal mental health care. In an effort to consolidate previous efforts to improve community mental health care and support the complex transition from hospital-based to community-based care delivery, the RECOVER-E (LaRge-scalE implementation of COmmunity based mental health care for people with seVere and Enduring mental ill health in EuRopE) project aims to implement and evaluate multidisciplinary community mental health teams in five countries in Central and Eastern Europe. This paper provides a brief overview of the RECOVER-E project and its methods.

In 1978 Italy implemented Law Number 180, the reform law that blocked all new admissions to public mental hospitals. After 40 years without mental hospitals, we aim at understanding the consequences of the Italian reform in terms of mental health care facility and staff availability. We compared the organization of the Italian mental health system with that of countries belonging to the Group of 7 (G7) major advanced economies. Italy has nearly 8 psychiatrists, 20 nurses, 2 social workers and less than 3 psychologists per 100,000 population, while for example in France there were 22 psychiatrists, in Japan 102 nurses, in the United States 18 social workers, and in Canada and France more than 45 psychologists per 100,000 population. In terms of inpatient facilities, no beds in mental hospitals were available in Italy, while in the other G7 countries mental hospital beds ranged from 8 in the United Kingdom to 204 in Japan per 100 000 population. In Italy there were fewer beds for acute care in general hospitals but more beds in community residential facilities than in the other G7 countries. Service use data showed variability in the provision of mental health care throughout the country. Soon after the implementation of the Italian reform the absolute number of compulsory admissions progressively declined, from more than 20,000 in 1978 to less than 9000 in 2015. Alongside the progressive decline of psychiatric beds imposed by Law 180, the age-adjusted suicide rate remained stable, ranging from 7·1/100,000 population in 1978 to 6·3/100,000 population in 2012. The population of psychiatric patients placed in Italian forensic psychiatric hospitals progressively declined. During the last 40 years without mental hospitals, Italy has seen a progressive consolidation of a community-based system of mental health care. We highlighted, however, reasons for concern, including a decreasing staffing level, a potential use of community residential facilities as long-stay residential services, a still too high variability in service provision across the country, and lack of national data on physical restraints. At a national level, the resources allocated to mental health care are lower in Italy than in other high-income countries.

There is increasing access to mental health services in biomedical settings (e.g., primary care and specialty clinics) in low- and middle-income countries. Traditional healing continues to be widely available and used in these settings as well. Our goal was to explore how the general public, traditional healers, and biomedical clinicians perceive the different types of services and make decisions regarding using one or both types of care.

Pasung is the term used in Indonesia and a number of other countries for seclusion and restraint of people with mental illness in the community, usually at home by their family. While pasung has been banned because it is contrary to human rights, its practice continues to exist within the community, particularly where community mental health services are limited, and in the absence of adequate social support, and pervasive negatives beliefs about mental illness. It is essential to understand the reasons for the ongoing use of pasung and to examine potential solutions.

Mental health and substance use disorders (SUDs) are the world's leading cause of years lived with disability; in low-and-middle income countries (LIMCs), the treatment gap for SUDs is at least 75%. LMICs face significant structural, resource, political, and sociocultural barriers to scale-up SUD services in community settings.

An open, non-controlled trial was conducted to explore the feasibility, experiences and outcomes of multi-family groups in community mental health care of patients with depression and anxiety.

Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) is more successful in reducing hospitalization when baseline use is high. However, with a growing recovery-focus, ACT may be useful for people with severe mental illness who are difficult to engage but not high users of inpatient services. This study investigated hospitalization 2 years before and 2 years after ACT enrollment amongst patients both with and without high inpatient services use before enrollment into ACT.

Loneliness has been commonly reported in high-income countries, while less is known about loneliness in Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states, in particular in Indonesia.