[New patients' access to psychiatric treatment services: Improving the quality indicators of mental health services].

Accessibility of patients to the health system as well as the system's rapid and effective response to patients' needs constitute basic quality indices of health services. Major parameter of accessibility is the required waiting time for a new patient to enter the health system. We present the results of the use of an organized system for the management of new requests for psychiatric treatment, which is based on the triage and evaluation of priorities.

[Crisis intervention for serious mental disorders. The example of the First Department of Psychiatry of Athens University].

We describe the crisis management and resolution service for serious mental disorders established by the First Department of Psychiatry of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The service is intended to meet patients' needs for adequate management of acute mental crisis without hospitalization, while implementing modern standards in mental care and considering existing restrictions in mental health resources and public expenditure. Last decade we witness an increase in demand for psychiatric beds in Psychiatric clinics of General Hospitals resulting in a drastic increase of auxiliary beds that becomes a serious problem in mental health provision.

EEG-based investigation of brain connectivity changes in psychotic patients undergoing the primitive expression form of dance therapy: a methodological pilot study.

Primitive expression (PE) is a form of dance therapy (DT) that involves an interaction of ethologically and socially based forms which are supplied for re-enactment. There exist very few studies of DT applications including in their protocol the measurement of neurophysiological parameters. The present pilot study investigates the use of the correlation coefficient (ρ) and mutual information (MI), and of novel measures extracted from ρ and MI, on electroencephalographic (EEG) data recorded in patients with schizophrenia while they undergo PE DT, in order to expand the set of neurophysiology-based approaches for quantifying possible DT effects, using parameters that might provide insights about any potential brain connectivity changes in these patients during the PE DT process.

Homeless mentally ill in Athens area: a cross-sectional study on unmet needs and help-seeking.

Background: Homelessness, a worldwide psychosocial phenomenon, is now also prevalent in Greece, mainly in Athens area.

Methods: The possible psychiatric morbidity related to help-seeking and the underlying factors were explored in a sample of 254 homeless people from Greater Athens area, using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.

Prevalence of psychiatric disorders among homeless people in Athens area: a cross-sectional study.

Purpose: Homelessness is a chronic social phenomenon in European and other Western cities. In the recent years, the number of homeless people in Greece, mainly in Athens, is also increasing.

Method: The aim of this study was to explore the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among a sample of 254 homeless people, using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.