2024-01-03 09:39:51
The vice president of the Spanish Society of Psychiatry and Mental Health (SEPSM), Marina Díaz Marsá, analyzes in this article for EFEsalud the challenges of mental health for the year that has just begun, 2024.
Doctor Marina Díaz Marsá, vice president of the Spanish Society of Psychiatry and Mental Health (SEPSM)/Courted photo
Dr. Marina Díaz Marsá analyzes the challenges of mental health in the year that has just begun, 2024. She has a degree in Medicine and Surgery from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1991. She specialized in Psychiatry at the Ramón y Cajal Hospital in Madrid , spending a six-month stay at Mount Sinai Hospital (New York), where he trained in Research Methodology in Impulsive Disorders.
Doctor of Medicine from the University of Alcalá, she has developed her healthcare activity in different psychiatry and mental health services. In addition to being vice president of the SEPSM, she is head of Section at the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid, where she directs the Eating Disorders and Early Intervention in Recent Onset Psychosis units.
Among other positions, she has also been president of the Madrid Psychiatry Society, national director of the Mental Health Strategy of the Ministry of Health for Eating Disorders in 2007 and chosen as one of the 500 most influential women of 2019 and 2020 and as one of the five best psychiatrists in Spain in 2019 and 2022.
Mental health challenges for 2024
Marina Díaz Marsá
In recent years and, especially, since the Covid-19 pandemic, Mental Health has been positioned as a priority public health problem and different actions have been promoted by different health, political and management organizations that have led to an increase in resources aimed at improving Mental Health care.
However, efforts must continue to be made to continue consolidating and strengthening the specialty of Psychiatry in our country, with the aim of maintaining psychiatric care of the highest quality capable of facing current and future challenges.
It is estimated that in Spain 29% of the population suffers from some Mental Health disorder, the most frequent diseases* being anxiety disorders (74.6 cases per 1,000 inhabitants), followed by sleep disorders and depressive disorders (60.7 and 41.9 per 1,000 inhabitants, respectively).
Other problems such as behavioral, eating and personality disorders in the young population or depressive disorders in the geriatric population are especially relevant.
In this context, suicide continues to be the main external cause of death in Spain, almost tripling deaths linked to traffic accidents and multiplying homicides by 14. Between the ages of 15 and 29, suicide is the absolute leading cause of death.
In it “White Paper on Psychiatry in Spain”, published in 2023 by the Spanish Society of Psychiatry and Mental Health, The areas on which it is recommended to focus efforts next year and in future years are included.
This book reminds us that Psychiatry and Mental Health must be positioned as a priority on political agendas, promoting health planning tools and legal frameworks that guarantee adequate allocation of resources for comprehensive, equitable and patient-centered care.
In this sense, in 2024 we should attend the increase in human and assistance resources and planning and adaptation of resources to existing demand. We must not forget that the ratio of psychiatrists per 100,000 inhabitants in Spain is significantly lower than that of other European countries and the surrounding area, being below the average and the ratios defined as optimal in different studies. To reach an optimal ratio of 13 – 15 psychiatrists per 100,000 inhabitants, 370 – 565 psychiatrists would have to be incorporated per year over the next 5 years. Achieving these optimal ratios could be difficult due to the high number of planned retirements, the insufficient number of specialists trained in the MIR system on an annual basis, the burnout and emotional exhaustion of Psychiatry specialists and regardless of the existing improvement in working conditions, among other factors. It is also necessary increase the number of hospital beds and the number of places in day hospitals, develop strategies for preventing and addressing suicidal behavior, promote humanization of spaces and care processes, promote the reduction of the stigma of mental illness and encourage the participation of specialists in Psychiatry in the design and implementation of those regulations, strategic frameworks and initiatives that could have an impact on people with mental disorders. By 2024, it is also relevant to determine the existing needs in relation to the specialty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and reinforce the resources directed to the continuing Education of the specialists. Finally, it would be advisable to promote a greater collaboration between Patient Associations and Scientific Societies of the field of Psychiatry and Mental Health and promote the active involvement of people with mental disorders and their family members and/or caregivers in the formulation of strategies, protocols, regulations, etc., as well as in the evaluation of services. EFE/Anindito Mukherjee
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