Non-pharmacological treatments for schizophrenia in Southeast Europe: An expert survey

Lidija Injac Stevović, Selman RepiÅ¡ti, Tamara RadojiÄ ić, Norman Sartorius, Sonila Tomori, Alma Džubur Kulenović, Ana Popova, Martina Rojnić Kuzman, Ilias I Vlachos, Shukrije Statovci, Alexei Bandati, Antoni Novotni, Stojan Bajraktarov, Anca-Livia Panfil, Nadja P. Maric, Mirjana Delić and Nikolina Jovanović

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2022, vol. 68, issue 5, 1141-1150

Abstract: Background: Non-pharmacological treatment for schizophrenia includes educational, psychotherapeutic, social, and physical interventions. Despite growing importance of these interventions in the holistic treatment of individuals with schizophrenia, very little is known about their availability in South-East European countries (SEE). Objective: To explore mental health care experts’ opinions of the availability of non-pharmacological treatment for people with schizophrenia in SEE. Methods: An online survey containing 11 questions was completed by one mental health expert from each of the following SEE countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo †, Montenegro, Moldova, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia. Data were collected on estimated rates of received non-pharmacological interventions, type of services delivering these interventions, and expert views of availability barriers. Results: In eight countries, the estimated percentage of people with schizophrenia who receive non-pharmacological treatments was below 35%. The primary explanations for the low availability of non-pharmacological treatments were: lack of human and financial resources, lack of training for clinicians, and pharmacotherapy dominance in the treatment for schizophrenia. Conclusion: Lack of personal and institutional resources and state support were identified as primary obstacles to staff training and delivering non-pharmacological treatments to people with schizophrenia on individual and systemic levels, respectively. This evidence can be used to improve holistic, evidence-based treatment for schizophrenia in the SEE countries.

Keywords: Non-pharmacological treatments; schizophrenia; mental health services; expert survey; Southeast European countries; psychosocial interventions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00207640211023072 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:68:y:2022:i:5:p:1141-1150

DOI: 10.1177/00207640211023072

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Social Psychiatry
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().