Evaluating Open Dialogue in Italian mental health services: evidence from a multisite prospective cohort study.

Objective: This longitudinal study aimed to quantitatively document and evaluate the implementation and outcomes of the Open Dialogue (OD) approach within Italian Mental Health Departments (MHDs), focusing on the ratings of OD-network meetings by patients and their families and assessing the clinical outcomes over a span of 12 months.

Results: Over the course of the study, 58 patients participated in 517 OD-network meetings, demonstrating a high level of satisfaction with the care received, as evidenced by the Session Rating Scale (SRS) and Outcome Rating Scale (ORS). Clinically, significant improvements were observed in the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (CORE-OM), and the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS), indicating enhanced psychological and social functioning.

Interpersonal sensitivity, bullying victimization and paranoid ideation among help-seeking adolescents and young adults.

Aim: The effects of a negative interpersonal experience, such as bullying victimization in childhood and adolescence, can be strong and long lasting. Bullying victimization is associated with paranoid ideation and suspiciousness. Few studies have focused on personality traits of victims of bullying.

The Italian version of the 92-item Prodromal Questionnaire: Concurrent validity with the SIPS and factor analysis in a sample of 258 outpatients aged 11-36years.

Background: Current early screeners for psychosis-risk states have still to prove ability in identifying at-risk individuals. Among screeners, the 92-item Prodromal Questionnaire (PQ-92) is often used. We aimed to assess the validity of its Italian translation in a large Italian adolescent and young adult help-seeking sample.

[Burden in caregivers of psychiatric patients attending psychodynamic multifamily groups: preliminary results of an empirical study].

Aim: The main aim of this study is to investigate the burden in relatives of psychiatric patients attending long-term psychodynamic multifamily groups (18 months) of some Mental Health Departments of Lazio Region. A further aim is to verify if the decrease of the burden and the group participation are associated with a reduction of psychiatric symptoms in patients.

Methods: The sample consisted of 13 patients (10 men and 3 women) with severe personality disorder with at least one psychotic episode and 42 caregivers (15 men and 27 women).

Youth mental health services in Italy: An achievable dream?

Aim: "Liberiamo il futuro" (LIF) project was designed to assess psychological problems of adolescents and young adults and to identify individuals at high-risk for developing a psychosis through a collaboration between a University team, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and Adult Mental Health Services. This paper presents the baseline demographic and clinical characteristics of the cohort, particularly the nature and severity of psychopathology.

Method: All help-seeking young people aged 12-35 years residing in the health district involved in LIF were invited to participate in the study and completed a battery of self- report and interviewer-administered measures of psychopathology and functioning at baseline.

Social enterprises, vocational rehabilitation, supported employment: working on work in Italy.

Since Basaglia's pioneering work in the 1960s, programs geared to employment have been considered hallmarks of good practice in Italian community psychiatry. These programs mostly include "train and place" schemes: sheltered workshops, training placements and temporary grants with public/private employers, and social enterprises (cooperatives). Law 68/1982 on disability and work demanded a "quota of workplaces" to be reserved for citizens with disability by public and private employers, but application to the psychiatric field proved problematic.

Mental health care in prisons and the issue of forensic hospitals in Italy.

Mental health (MH) care for Italian prisoners and offenders with mental illness is a paradoxical issue. Theory and practice remained unchanged throughout the 20th century, despite radical changes to general psychiatric care. Until recently, Italy had one of the most advanced National Health Service (NHS)-run community psychiatry care systems and a totally obsolete system of forensic psychiatry managed by criminal justice institutions.