Changes in national rates of psychiatric beds and incarceration in Central Eastern Europe and Central Asia from 1990-2019: A retrospective database analysis.

Background: Numbers of psychiatric beds (general, forensic, and residential) and prison populations have been considered to be indicators of institutionalisation of people with mental illnesses. The present study aimed to assess changes of those indicators across Central Eastern Europe and Central Asia (CEECA) over the last three decades to capture how care has developed during that historical period.

Methods: We retrospectively obtained data on numbers of psychiatric beds and prison populations from 30 countries in CEECA between 1990 and 2019.

Forensic psychiatry in some Balkan countries.

Purpose Of Review: In Balkan countries, as in all Europe, forensic psychiatry as a subspecialty between psychiatry and legal medicine, an interface between mental health and the law, is focused on assessment and treatment of people with mental disorder who show antisocial or violent behavior. Thus, the authors thought that to show the actual situation of forensic psychiatry in their countries would be more interesting than only to review some articles published in these last 2 years in this part of the world.

Recent Findings: The article also includes some review about forensic psychiatry in prison in Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia and about a recent book published in Bulgaria.

Psychiatry and geriatric psychiatry in Romania.

Romania is now in a period of transition from communism to democracy. Geographically, Romania, like other Eastern European countries, is on the border between the Western world and the Middle East and Asia; until December 1989 it was behind the 'Iron Curtain'.