Psychiatric Reform in Spain

Abstract

The year 1985 was a key year in the process of reform of mental health services in Spain: that year saw the appearance of the major document that served as the basis for the changes that took place in subsequent years. It was the year when the Ministry of Health and Consumer Services published the report of the Ministerial Committee for Psychiatric Reform [1], a committee, created in 1983, composed of academic and practicing psychiatrists representing certain territories. Its report presented an analysis of the state of mental health care, established general guidelines for reform, and proposed some recommendations on how the reform might proceed. The previous situation was complex and fraught with obstacles. Both the public and the private administrative bodies that managed the care resources were varied, uncoordinated, and unintegrated. The provincial administrative bodies (provincial councils) had actually borne the responsibility for psychiatric hospitalization since the old law of 1887 [2]. In 1975, before the reform got under way, 49.5 percent of psychiatric beds were under the jurisdiction of the provincial councils [3]. The social security