Occultism and playing with the dead: When rituals go wrong.

There have been at least two deaths in Albania linked to ritualistic/satanic practices, which have provoked considerable public concern. Until the 1990s, Albania was strictly atheist. However, since then some religious sects have been establishing themselves.

Old age mental health services in Southern Balkans: Features, geospatial distribution, current needs, and future perspectives.

Background: Healthcare services are increasingly confronted with challenges related to old age mental disorders. The survey aimed to provide an overview of existing psychogeriatric services in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and North Macedonia.

Methods: After identification of psychogeriatric units across the four countries, their head physicians were asked to provide data on their clinical, teaching, and research activity, as well as staff composition.

A Video Parent-Training Program for Families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Albania.

Background: Behavioral intervention with parent participation is effective in reducing symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but access to intervention is limited. The current study explored whether a video-enriched parent-training program would (a) be comprehensible and acceptable to parents in the Republic of Albania, (b) increase parental knowledge of behavioral strategies and (c) increase parental self-efficacy.

Methods: Twenty-nine parents of children with ASD aged 18-70 months completed the Early Intervention Parenting Self-Efficacy Scale (EIPSES, Guimond, Wilcox, & Lamorey, 2008) and a quiz to assess their knowledge of behavioral strategies.

Child and adolescent psychiatry training and mental health care in Southeast Europe.

There is very limited information available on child and adolescent psychiatry (CAP) training in the Southeast European (SEE) region. The objective of this study was to fill in this gap by presenting descriptive data on CAP training and national mental health services for children and adolescent in 11 SEE countries. On the initiative of World Psychiatric Association-CAP section, national CAP association boards from each SEE country allocated one member to the Consortium on Academic Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in SEE (CACAP SEE) in 2018.