Psychiatric reform in Italy

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Psychiatric reform in Italy is the reform of psychiatry which started in Italy after the passing of Basaglia Law in 1978 and terminated with the very end of the Italian state mental hospital system in 1998. [1] Among European countries, Italy was the first to publicly declare its repugnance for a mental health care system which led to social exclusion and segregation. [2] The psychiatric reform was also a consequence of a public debate sparked by Giorgio Coda's case and stories collected and analyzed in Alberto Papuzzi's book Portami su quello che canta.

Contents

Aims

The reform was directed towards the gradual dismantling of the psychiatric hospitals and required a comprehensive, integrated and responsible community mental health service. [3] :665 The object of community care is to reverse the long-accepted practice of isolating the mental ill in large institutions, to promote their integration in the community offering them a milieu which is socially stimulating, while avoiding subjecting them to too intense social pressures. [3] :664

Course

Since the late 1960s, the Italian physician Giorgio Antonucci questioned the basis itself of psychiatry. After working with Edelweiss Cotti in 1968 at the Centro di Relazioni Umane in Cividale del Friuli – an open ward created as an alternative to the psychiatric hospital – from 1973 to 1996 Antonucci worked on the dismantling of the psychiatric hospitals Osservanza and Luigi Lolli of Imola, [4] and the liberation – and restitution to life – of the people there secluded. In August, 1971, Franco Basaglia became the director of the provincial psychiatric hospital located in Trieste. [5] With a group of young physicians not yet influenced by traditional psychiatry —as well as psychologists, volunteers and students— Basaglia started an intense project for the theoretical-practical criticism of the institution of the asylum. [5] At that time, there were approximately 1,200 patients in the San Giovanni psychiatric hospital, most of them were under compulsory treatment. [5] From 1971 to 1974, the efforts of Franco Basaglia and his equipe were directed at changing the rules and logic which governed the institution, putting the hierarchy in question, changing the relations between patients and operators, inventing new relations, opportunities and spaces, and restoring freedom and rights to the inmates. [5]

In the hospital being transformed, guardianship was substituted by care, institutional abandonment by the full assumption of responsibility for the patient and their condition, while the negation of the individual through the concept of illness-danger was replaced by the conferring of importance and value to individual life histories. [5] Any form of physical containment and shock therapy was suppressed, the barriers and mesh which had enclosed the wards were removed, doors and gates were opened, compulsory hospitalizations became voluntary and definitive ones were revoked, thus the patients regained their political and civil rights. [5]

Main characteristics

Michele Tansella specified the main characteristics of the Italian experience: [3] :668

The closure of various hospital settings became possible because of constant reduction of in-patients number which in the course of years had the following dynamics: [6] [ clarification needed (Are the numbers expressing the number of psychiatric beds nationally?)]

1968: 4.6331972: 3.3851976: 2.684
1969: 4.5081973: 3.0371977: 2.492
1970: 4.0541974: 2.9371978: 2.176
1971: 3.6341975: 2.8341979: 1.710 [6]

Estimations

Giovanna Russo and Francesco Carelli state that back in 1978 the Basaglia reform perhaps could not be fully implemented because society was unprepared for such an avant-garde and innovative concept of mental health. [7] Thirty years later, it has become more obvious that this reform reflects a concept of modern health and social care for mental patients. [7] The Italian example originated samples of effective and innovative service models and paved the way for deinstitutionalisation of mental patients. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Franco Basaglia Italian psychiatrist and neurologist

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Basaglia Law

Basaglia Law or Law 180 is the Italian Mental Health Act of 1978 which signified a large reform of the psychiatric system in Italy, contained directives for the closing down of all psychiatric hospitals and led to their gradual replacement with a whole range of community-based services, including settings for acute in-patient care. The Basaglia Law is the basis of Italian mental health legislation. The principal proponent of Law 180 and its architect was Italian psychiatrist Franco Basaglia. Therefore, Law 180 is known as the “Basaglia Law” from the name of its promoter. The Parliament of Italy approved the Law 180 on 13 May 1978, and thereby initiated the gradual dismantling of psychiatric hospitals. Implementation of the psychiatric reform law was accomplished in 1998 which marked the very end of the state psychiatric hospital system in Italy. The Law has had worldwide impact as other counties took up widely the Italian model. It was Democratic Psychiatry which was essential in the birth of the reform law of 1978.

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Giorgio Coda Italian psychiatrist and professor

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References

  1. Burti L. (2001). "Italian psychiatric reform 20 plus years after". Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica . 104 (410 Supplementum): 41–46. doi:10.1034/j.1600-0447.2001.1040s2041.x. PMID   11863050. S2CID   40910917.
  2. Ramon, Shulamit; Williams, Janet (2005). Mental health at the crossroads: the promise of the psychosocial approach. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 57. ISBN   978-0-7546-4191-9.
  3. 1 2 3 Tansella M. (November 1986). "Community psychiatry without mental hospitals — the Italian experience: a review". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine . 79 (11): 664–669. PMC   1290535 . PMID   3795212.
  4. "Dacia Maraini intervista Giorgio Antonucci" [Dacia Maraini interviews Giorgio Antonucci]. La Stampa (in Italian). 26 July, 29 and 30 December 1978. Archived from the original on 13 April 2013.{{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Del Giudice G. (1998). "Psychiatric Reform in Italy" (PDF). Trieste: Mental Health Department. Retrieved 5-10-2010.{{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  6. 1 2 "Dal 1968 al 1995: la prima fase del "superamento" dell'istituzione psichiatrica". Psichiatria e storia. Archived from the original on 2012-03-13. Retrieved 2010-10-21.
  7. 1 2 3 Russo G., Carelli F. (May 2009). "Dismantling asylums: The Italian Job" (PDF). London Journal of Primary Care.

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