Forensic Care in Italy: Changes, Illusions and Realities

Abstract

Violence and the risk of violence posed by patients with severe mental illness is a major public health problem for many reasons. Firstly there is the obvious harm to victims, secondly the counter-therapeutic effect on patients of the violence itself, thirdly the restrictive measures typically deployed by services to manage the violence, and finally the significant additional financial cost of these specialist services. Within mental health services the sometimes inaccurate estimate of risk of violence posed by patients can lead to the frequent use of a variety of coercive measures including involuntary hospitalization, enforced medication, restraint and seclusion. These restrictive and costly interventions are almost unanimously perceived as traumatic by the patients and can, in turn, trigger frustration, therapeutic resistance and even aggression instead of treatment adherence and cooperation.

Services for the treatment of psychiatric patients who pose a risk of violence are developing and maturing across Europe. New models of care for this extremely complicated multiple needs clinical population exist. However across Europe intervention strategies and service organization and delivery for these patients are very different, and have never been comparatively evaluated. The lack of reliable comparative data has prevented many European countries benefiting from innovative strategies already tested in those countries which have made the greatest efforts in research and service innovation. In this workshop we will compare the organization and functioning of forensic mental health services in different countries; in particular this presentation will inform about the recent changes in forensic mental health services occurred in Italy.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.