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COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the pre-existing vulnerabilities and inequalities in societies. In this paper we analyse the categories that have suffered more than others from the pandemic and the restrictions on social life in terms of mental health. We rely on the Serendipity project based on a survey administered between November 2021 and February 2022 to a sample of Italian physicians (n = 1281). The survey aimed to assess the perception of general practitioners, paediatricians, geriatricians, and mental health specialists (psychiatrists, neurologists, child neuropsychiatrists), about changes in the mental health of the population as an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown. The strategies implemented by the doctors interviewed in terms of the intensity of the prevention, emergence, and treatment of mental health interventions, and their association with physicians' characteristics and their opinions on patient vulnerability have been illustrated by means of a multiple correspondence analysis. An overall result of the survey is the consensus of doctors on the worsening of mental health in general population, especially among their patients, due to the pandemic and on the onset of new discomforts. The most exposed individuals to the risk of onset or worsening of mental disorders include women, young people, and patients with psychiatric comorbidity. The paper also illustrates the interventions put in place by the physicians and deemed necessary from a public heath response perspective, that include providing psychoeducation to the general population, improving telehealth services, and increasing financial and human resources for community-based care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Italian anti-institutional psychiatric movement is closely associated with the name of F. Basaglia, whom Szasz in his 188-page essay on antipsychiatry labels a 'real phony' (in similar terms to others considered antipsychiatrists such as D. Cooper, R. Laing, E. Goffman and M. Foucault). Specifically, Szasz says of Basaglia and his work in psychiatry that it's a 'prevarication-illusion about the end of asylum psychiatry in Italy'. Aim/objective: The aim of this paper is to determine whether Szasz's assessments were reliably based on scholarly knowledge of Basaglia's psychiatric work, or can better be attributed to Szasz's misrepresentation of his Italian colleague. Methods: In considering this question, the paper is timely but, more importantly, it is also unique in considering Basaglia and Szasz together. It is beyond the scope of this article to examine Basaglia's career in detail, and references to it will be made only to clarify Szasz's assertions regarding Basaglia. Results and conclusions: As I will show here, Szasz misconstrued the Basaglian project for a new kind of psychiatry, and for the transformation and closure of the old asylum system. This erroneous view of Basaglia by Szasz is partly associated with his idea that Basaglia and other antipsychiatrists were supported by the modern socialist-therapeutic State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic had a great impact on adolescent mental health, with a dramatic rise in psychiatric emergencies that has challenged healthcare systems worldwide. This paper aims at focusing on reporting the authors' experience and their data collected on adolescent emergencies in 2022 in Tuscan, within the context of the "Azienda USL Toscana Nord Ovest", a large department covering about a third of Tuscany's Regional Health Service, in central Italy. The collected findings will be shortly presented and commented on, while providing insights concerning the importance of adapting healthcare systems to adequately respond to this growing crisis and the need for broader strategies to support adolescent mental health in these challenging times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the "Trieste model" of public psychiatry is one of the most progressive in the world. It was in Trieste, Italy, in the 1970s that the radical psychiatrist, Franco Basaglia, implemented his vision of anti-institutional, democratic psychiatry. The Trieste model put the suffering person-not his or her disorders-at the center of the health care system. The model, revolutionary in its time, began with the "negation" and "destruction" of the traditional mental asylum ('manicomio'). A novel community mental health system replaced the mental institution. To achieve this, the Trieste model promoted the social inclusion and full citizenship of users of mental health services. Trieste has been a collaborating center of the WHO for four decades with a goal of disseminating its practices across the world. This paper illustrates a recent attempt to determine whether the Trieste model could be translated to the city of San Francisco, California. This process revealed a number of obstacles to such a translation. Our hope is that a review of Basaglia's ideas, along with a discussion of the obstacles to their implementation, will facilitate efforts to foster the social integration of persons with mental disorders across the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Objective: To describe the development of a community-based mental health service, the patterns of care provided by this new service established in 1978 and its costs. Method: The South-Verona Psychiatric Case Register, the South-Verona Outcome Project and studies designed to assess costs provided process and outcome data. Results: This paper summarizes descriptive statistics as well as the results of some evaluative studies conducted over the last 25 years in Verona, Italy. It reports patterns of care provided over the years by this new, comprehensive community-based service, targeted to the severely mentally ill but available also to all other residents in the area who need mental health care. Conclusion: Developing community-based mental health care requires a series of coordinated actions that need to be pursued over a long period of time. Service evaluation, including costs assessment, is an important part of this exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After legislative changes in 1978, Italian psychiatry underwent a thorough overhaul, with the gradual closure of all Mental Hospitals. A nation-wide network of Departments of Mental Health now deliver outpatient and inpatient care, but also run semi-residential and residential facilities (the latter with 2.9 beds per 10,000 inhabitants). Hospital care is delivered through small psychiatric units (with no more than 15 beds). There are also many private inpatient facilities operating in Italy, and the number of private inpatient beds per 10,000 inhabitants exceeds the number of public beds; overall there are 1.7 acute beds per 10,000 inhabitants—one of Europe’s currently lowest numbers. There is marked quanti- and qualitative variation in the provision of out- and inpatient care throughout the country, and service utilization patterns are similarly uneven. Studies examining quality of life report a fairly high degree of patient satisfaction, whereas patients’ families frequently bear a heavy burden. In conclusion, the Italian reform law led to the establishment of a broad network of facilities to meet diverse care needs. Further efforts are required to improve quality of care and to develop a more effectively integrated system. Greater attention must be paid to topics such as quality of care and outcomes, public and private sector balance, and the coordination of various resources and agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]