The provision of psychiatric care in southern Italy. Results from the 'Psychiatry in Southern Italy's 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 of resources and organization features of collaborating CMHDs; 2) Unreplicated 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 severely ill population: 45.8% of attenders had 8 years or less of formal education; only 18.9% were employed, 30.9% of diagnoses were of the schizophrenia spectrum group and 23% of the affective disorders group. Sixty-eight per cent of patients were being treated with psychotropic drugs, while only 19% received rehabilitative interventions. The activity of CMHDs were oriented more towards the control of active symptomatology than towards rehabilitation. A significantly higher proportion of patients receiving a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder diagnosis were found in contact during the index week with those CMHDs providing both residential and semiresidential (day-hospital, community center) facilities.