Researching whether Finnish Open Dialogue transfers to the Italian mental health system1

Abstract

This chapter presents the research design and preliminary results of a project evaluating the transferability of the Finnish Open Dialogue approach into the Italian mental health system. The project involves eight mental health departments (MHDs) across Italy, selected according to their mental health directors’ interest in developing an Open Dialogue approach. The research evaluated a) professionals’ views and system antecedents, b) the effectiveness of the training, especially in terms of whether it led to Open Dialogue clinical practice, and c) a pilot study to clarify whether Open Dialogue is transferable clinically and organisationally into the context of Italian MHDs. Whilst further evaluations are awaited, the Open Dialogue teams successfully enrolled and treated 69.2% of all new service users in the areas being researched.