THE PROVISION OF PSYCHIATRIC-CARE IN SOUTHERN ITALY - RESULTS FROM THE PSYCHIATRY IN SOUTHERN ITALY SERVICES (DE PISIS) SURVEY

Objective: To describe structural features, attenders' characteristics and intervention habits in a large sample of Community Mental Health Departments (CMHDs) in Southern Italy. Design and setting: 1) Survey o f resources and organization features of collaborating CMHDs; 2) Unrep licated registration of all attenders and of therapeutic interventions during an index week. Results: A self-selected sample of 47 CMHDs in Southern Italy recruited 3845 patients during the last week of October 1992. Participating CMHDs were serving a socially deprived and severe ly ill population: 45.8% of attenders had 8 years or less of formal ed ucation; only 18.9% were employed, 30.9% of diagnoses were of the schi zophrenia spectrum group and 23% of the affective disorders group. Six ty-eight per cent of patients were being treated with psychotropic dru gs, while only 19% received rehabilitative interventions. The activity of CMHDs were oriented more towards the control of active symptomatol ogy than towards rehabilitation. A significantly higher proportion of patients receiving a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder diagnosis were fo und in contact during the index week with those CMHDs providing both r esidential and semiresidential (day-hospital, community center) facili ties.