Psychiatry In Greece Research Articles

Locked versus open ward environments and restrictive measures in acute psychiatry in Greece: Nursing students' attitudes and experiences.

To examine student nurses' attitudes and experiences of door policies and restrictive measures in acute psychiatric care. A mixed-method study with 274 third-year students. Participants' attitudes towards door locking and other containment measures appeared to be more a matter of custom, practice and tradition at particular units. The therapeutic benefits of open doors was the central organizing element in open units experiences while locked doors appeared to be "invisible" when the locked unit was perceived as a caring environment. Exploring student nurses' attitudes towards crucial and debatable aspects of mental health practice contributes in cultivating a critical and analytical attitude towards the service they provide necessary for supporting a recovery mental health model and building a strong professional identity.

The power of the divine: religion, rituals, and healing in Greece

ABSTRACT The present critical review examines the role of religious healing in mental health in Greece. After describing the history of psychiatry in Greece, and the close links between medicine and religion, we discuss the role of various ritual contexts in healing mental distress. Findings suggest that supernatural explanatory models of mental illness, such as the evil eye and spirit possession still appear to be prevalent in many parts of Greece. Despite the availability of mainstream psychology, patients and their families commonly resort to religious healers. The perception is that ritual healing is effective in alleviating symptoms of mental distress. While studies suggest that ritual participation can be efficacious, there is a need for future research to examine the efficacy of religious healing for mental disorders. Ethnographic methods will play a significant role in understanding how ritual attendees perceive healing and biomedical assessments elucidate physiological changes.

Artistic expression and Psychiatry in Greece: Prominence highlights (1950-2011)

The art of the confined began to be studied by psychiatrists in the late 19th century for diagnostic purposes, while the first studies of aesthetic interest were found in the first decades of the 20th century, when psychiatrists as the Swiss W. Morgenthaler and the Austrian H. Prinzhorn published studies on mentally ill artworks, having mainly aesthetic approach. The artworks of the mentally ill belong to the field of Art found in the international literature by the term of Art Brut. The term "Brut" was introduced in 1945 by J. Dubuffet to describe the production of art by authors who were not taught academic art, did not belong to any artistic movement and were indifferent to a potential identification with the viewer or the collector. This French painter and sculptor named Art Brut the founded movement, whose main field was the works of mental patients. Dubuffet was particularly affected, in terms of artistic expression, like so many other creators of expressionism and surrealism, by the art of the mentally ill. Regarding the Greek scene, the relationship between our country and this category of Art began in 1950, at the Psychiatric Hospital of Attica "Dromokaitio", when Professor G. Pampoukis and Dr N. Drakoulidis sent patients' works to the Exposition Internationale d' Art Psychopathologique ( International Exhibition of Psychopathological Art) held in Paris that year. By the late 1980's, only occupational therapy projects existed. The first major artist appearance with a mental disorder is that of O.K. with his participation in the 2nd Biennale of Young Artists of the Mediterranean, in 1987. The year 1994 was a very important one in terms of art production of the mentally ill, as the Cultural Communication Unit (CCU) of the Psychiatric Hospital of Thessaloniki (P.H.T.) was founded, which aim was to produce original works that recorded the psychic reality of the patients and did not recreate other artists' projects. Regarding the promotion of this art, of great significance are the three Panhellenic Exhibitions held in 1996, 1997 and 2001, the last under the auspices of the Greek Psychiatric Association, which brought together the patient-artists' projects of various institutions of our country with the general public, receiving very positive feedback from both the press and the critics. Worth mentioning is also the honorary discrimination of two patient-artists who cooperated with the CCU, D.Z. and A.V., in EUWARD 2004 and 2007 of the German Foundation Augustinum, and also of G.M., who was awarded the first prize at the competition of "Very Special Art" in USA. Two other important moments of the effort of projecting the relationship between Art and Psychiatry were first in 2004 with the exhibition On The Other Bank, as part of the Cultural Olympiad, and the other in 2005 at the Christian and Byzantine Museum of Athens, where the exhibition Art against Stigma, organized by the World Psychiatric Association, the Greek Psychiatric Association and a privately held pharmaceutical company took place. Finally in 2011, again under the auspices of the Greek Psychiatric Association, works of the famous Prinzhorn Collection were exhibited both in Athens and Thessaloniki. In this way the public, once again, came into contact with works in which fears, insecurities and demons within the soul of every patientartist were imprinted, these projects serving not only as clinical evidence but also as creations of unquestionable artistic value.

Current challenges for psychiatry in Greece.

Psychiatry in Greece is undergoing a prolonged reform. Deinstitutionalisation is at an advanced stage and there are active efforts to support primary care and community psychiatry, and to establish local administration of services in each sector of the country (i.e. the equivalent of Mental Health Trusts in the UK). Quality assurance and continuing professional development require further development, as do a series of other issues pertaining to the day-to-day clinical practice of psychiatrists. Recent economic difficulties have undoubtedly affected the mental health of the population, but also mental health services and psychiatrists themselves. These financial difficulties coupled with pre-existing organisational issues present important, yet rectifiable, challenges. We conclude by identifying preventive psychiatry as an especially important target for progress and by advocating for continued support for the public system of mental healthcare as well as for the continued psychiatric reform.

The state of child and adolescent psychiatry in Greece during the international financial crisis: a brief report

█ Abstract Background: The purpose of this study was to compare a medical diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with the perceptions of immigrant parents regarding their child’s difficulties. Methods: Semistructured interviews were conducted with parents. The children were assessed using the ADOS, and a multiaxial diagnosis was reached using the DSM-IV. Results: The majority of parents recognized symptoms in their child that were related to autism. Less often, however, parents believed their children had a developmental delay or communication problem rather than an ASD. There were also parents who failed to see any problem at all in their child although the child was, nonetheless, diagnosed as having an ASD. Conclusions: The failure of immigrant mothers to acknowledge a diagnosis of ASD in their younger children may represent an attempt to preserve hope for their child’s future. Mothers of older children may not, however, agree with the psychiatric diagnosis. Community services need to balance the need to convey accurate medical information with the need to protect parents’ investment in their children. This may be particularly true for immigrant parents who are living outside their cultural framework.

The state of psychiatry in Greece

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.

The psychodynamically oriented Consultation–Liaison Psychiatry Unit, University of Ioannina, Greece

The development of consultation–liaison (C–L) psychiatry in Greece has been described briefly previously [1]. We describe here the recently developed C–L Unit of the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Ioannina. Between 1983 and 2006, C–L services had been offered by consultants of the psychiatry department in the general hospital. In December 2006, an independent C–L Unit was established, as a result of a reorganization of the Mental Health Network in the Ioannina County, following the establishment of new community psychiatry service. The psychiatric unit of our general hospital was divided into four services: the C–L Unit, the Brief Hospitalization Unit, the Low Security Unit, and the Outpatient Department. The C–L Unit staff consists of two full-time and one part-time consultant psychiatrists, two full-time residents in psychiatry, one full-time and one part-time clinical psychologist, four PhD students, and four undergraduate medical students. The unit covers the inpatients in our 750-bed university general hospital. The Accident and Emergency Department is covered by the Psychiatric Department's 24-h service.

Medical Students’ Attitudes Toward Psychiatry in Greece

This study is a comparative investigation of the attitudes toward psychiatry of two medical student groups who did their undergraduate training in psychiatry in 1985 and 1993. Attitude assessments were carried out by using the Libertarian Mental Health Ideology Scale (LMHIS). The students completed the questionnaire twice, at the beginning and at the end of their clerkship. The LMHIS was also completed by the teaching staff. Both medical student groups showed a significant change in their attitudes toward psychiatry after the end of the training. The change consisted of a shift to a more medical orientation. However, the 1993 group manifested a significantly higher medical orientation both before and after their undergraduate training in psychiatry compared with the 1985 group. Furthermore, the former group's opinions at the end of their education were similar to those of their teaching staff, whereas the 1985 students continued to have a lower medical orientation compared with the teaching staff. These findings indicate that 1) psychiatric education during medical school may significantly mold students' attitudes toward psychiatry and 2) if these medical student groups represent the larger Greek society, then significant changes may be occurring in the Greek society about attitudes toward psychiatry.

An outline of the development of psychiatry in Greece

Psychiatry was introduced into Greece in the second half of the nineteenth century. It developed as a medical specialty between 1880-1930. The fundamental characteristics of psychiatry in Greece are: (a) the discontinuity in the introduction of scientific knowledge; (b) the important position of the private clinics; (c) the delayed organization of the public sector.

Psychiatry in Greece

Psychiatry in Greece

8. Europe

C. SAFILIOS-ROTHSCHILD describes the problem which cultural attitudes towards mental disorders create for psychiatry in Greece.

Milestones in Medicine.

This would be a delightful present for one of those many laymen who are interested in medicine or for a young man on the threshold of his premedical course or, for that matter, for a well read practitioner of medicine. Each would find in the volume many interesting new facts. There are curious facts about the beginnings of psychiatry in Greece in ancient times and even more curious facts about the genes and the ways in which they are now being studied and located in giant chromosomes. Vogel's chapter describing the awful dietary, medical and hygienic conditions which existed on ships in olden times is one of the most interesting in the book. When it is learned how the sailors had to live on stinking water, rotten salt pork and moldy hardtack, it can readily be seen why sometimes half the sailors on a man-of-war died of diarrhea and scurvy.