Adolescent gambling in greater Athens area: a cross-sectional study.

Purpose: Problem gambling in adolescents has recently emerged as a pressing public health concern. In this context and in light of the pervasive financial crisis in Greece, the present study aimed to explore adolescents' gambling involvement in Athens region to estimate the prevalence of its problematic form and to identify its risk/protective factors.

Methods: A total of 2141 students were recruited from a representative sample of 51 schools located in greater Athens area.

Psychiatric reform in Greece: an overview.

Leros became infamous worldwide in the 1980s because of a scandal in its mental institution, the Leros asylum. The scandal provoked universal outrage and the international pressure triggered the Greek mental health reform. Under the reform projects Leros I and Leros II (1990-1994), numerous interventions took place in the Leros asylum as part of deinstitutionalisation.

Stressful life events and psychosocial correlates of pediatric inflammatory bowel disease activity.

Aim: To investigate the association of psychiatric and psychosocial correlates with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) activity in children and adolescents.

Methods: A total of 85 pediatric IBD patients (in remission or active state of the disease) and their parents completed a series of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews measuring life events, depression, anxiety, family dysfunction, and parent mental health. Differences between the remission and the IBD active group and the association of any significant variable with the disease activity state were examined.

The financial crisis and the future of mental health in Greece.

The recent financial crisis in Greece has affected the mental health of the population as well as mental health service provision and planning. These new adverse circumstances call for the profession's swift response. In this paper we make evidence-based suggestions for urgent, as well as longer-term, mental health reform.

The state of psychiatry in Greece.

Greek psychiatry is presently in a transitional period. Following a large-scale reform effort that started in the mid 1980s, de-institutionalization and establishment of numerous community services has been achieved to a great extent. However, sectorization, development of primary care policies, inter-sectoral communication and long-range planning have not been achieved and deficiencies in the provision of care for children, adolescents, old people, individuals with autism, with intellectual disabilities and with eating disorders as well as deficiencies in forensic psychiatric services have been identified.

Perspectives of intellectual disability in Greece: epidemiology, policy, services for children and adults.

Purpose Of Review: The purpose of this review is to investigate the existing situation regarding how people with intellectual disability are treated in contemporary Greece.

Recent Findings: The legal rights of people with intellectual disability are fully protected. Steady improvement of special education, along with development of educational services.

Depressive symptomatology in high school students: the role of age, gender and academic pressure.

To clarify the prevalence of depressive symptomatology in high school students in Athens and to evaluate risk factors for depressive symptomatology the CES-D scale was administered to 713 students (age 15-18). Demographic, school performance and extracurricular activities data were collected. A high prevalence (26.

Parental attitudes and opinions on the use of psychotropic medication in mental disorders of childhood.

Background: The limited number of systematic, controlled studies that assess the safety and efficacy of psychotropic medications for children reinforce the hesitation and reluctance of parents to administer such medications. The aim of this study was to investigate the attitudes of parents of children with psychiatric disorders, towards psychotropic medication.

Methods: A 20-item questionnaire was distributed to 140 parents during their first contact with an outpatient child psychiatric service.

Forced migration, adolescence, and identity formation.

Adolescence is a complex biopsychosocial phenomenon. All the inner-subjective changes in adolescents take place within the context of a specific social environment, which offers the necessary ideological setting that adolescents must confront in the course of their identity formation. Forced migration creates conditions under which the adolescent Ego may be traumatized more easily, resulting in the development of defensive mechanisms, which may interfere with the natural process of identity formation.

Evaluating mental health services in a Greek community. The factor of non-compliance to therapy.

This study aims to evaluate rendered mental health services for children and adolescents through the investigation of those factors which are related to non-compliance with therapy and which affect treatment outcome. Data were collected from the files of all new cases who applied to a Community Mental Health Centre in Athens during 2000-2002 (N = 363). For each case, the following factors were examined: age, sex, family situation, parents' educational level, referral source, child's psychiatric and psychosocial diagnoses, type of proposed therapy, phase at which termination of therapy occurred and outcome.

Treatment compliance and early termination of therapy: a comparative study.

Background: Compliance in therapy appears to be linked to the process of therapeutic alliance. A positive patient-therapist relationship usually leads to successful completion of therapy. The aim of this study was to compare evidence, collected at two time periods in a Community Mental Health Center in Athens, on factors affecting treatment compliance.

Sleep problems in adolescence. A study of senior high school students in Greece.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate sleep habits and sleep-related problems in high school adolescent students in Greece through the Athens Insomnia Scale and to assess the relation of these problems to demographic and other variables.

Methods: The Athens Insomnia Scale 5-item version (AIS-5) was administered to 713 adolescent senior high school students in the Greater Athens Area. Data such as age, sex, school records, and time spent per week in school-related and extracurricular activities were collected.

Psychopathology and mental health service utilization by immigrants' children and their families.

To investigate the psychopathology of immigrants' children and psychiatric service utilization by the immigrant families, data were collected from the files of all 35 immigrant children seen over a 3-year period at the Community Mental Health Centre of the Athens University Psychiatric Department. Immigrant children were matched by age, gender and intake date with 70 Greek children. Data concerned information about the child's place of birth, current living conditions, parents' country of origin, social and economic situation, occupations and educational status, social insurance, psychiatric history, referral source, diagnostic and therapeutic services rendered, number of sessions and outcome.