The state of psychiatry in Greece

Abstract

Greek psychiatry is presently in a transitional period. Following a large-scale reform effort that started in the mid 1980s, de-institutionalization and establishment of numerous community services has been achieved to a great extent. However, sectorization, development of primary care policies, inter-sectoral communication and long-range planning have not been achieved and deficiencies in the provision of care for children, adolescents, old people, individuals with autism, with intellectual disabilities and with eating disorders as well as deficiencies in forensic psychiatric services have been identified. Thus, the Greek psychiatric reform is an unfinished reform. The financial crisis that has recently hit the country has had a serious impact on the population and especially on vulnerable groups such as individuals with psychiatric disorders. Continuation of psychiatric reform to its desired extent has become problematic. This situation calls for re-orientation of the national mental health strategy towards more realistic and priority-orientated goals, i.e. securing a satisfactory level of function of the existing services, persisting in the implementation of the basic targets of psychiatric reform, creating the necessary infrastructure but avoiding the creation of expensive facilities of secondary importance.