Graham Thornicroft, Atalay Alem, Renato Antunes Dos Santos, Elizabeth Barley, Robert E Drake, Guilherme Gregorio, Charlotte Hanlon, Hiroto Ito, Eric Latimer, Ann Law, Jair Mari, Peter McGeorge, Ramachandran Padmavati, Denise Razzouk, Maya Semrau, Yutaro Setoya, Rangaswamy Thara, Dawit Wondimagegn
This paper provides guidance on the steps, obstacles and mistakes to avoid in the implementation of community mental health care. The document is intended to be of practical use and interest to psychiatrists worldwide regarding the development of community mental health care for adults with mental illness. The main recommendations are presented in relation to: the need for coordinated policies, plans and programmes, the requirement to scale up services for whole populations, the importance of promoting community awareness about mental illness to increase levels of help-seeking, the need to establish effective financial and budgetary provisions to directly support services provided in the community...
June 2010: World Psychiatry: Official Journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA)