Health quality indicators and the legislative treatment of mental disorders

Quality in health services may be expressed as an equilibrium scale of measurement of both dimensions, ie physical and mental. It is an individual but also a collective search for securing personal prosperity and social solidarity respectively. Its assurance stems from the assessment of basic, customized and predefined criteria based on structures, processes and results. The quality of mental health is still considered an underestimated concept, which will be an element of our larger focus, as its servicing resources remain elementary and therefore inadequate in many countries. The effects of mental health on the public health system are maximized by the impact of their direct and indirect costs. To address the cumulative effects of mental disorders, the World Health Organization issued in 2003 a package of instructions to deal with them. In Greece, the improvement of the quality of mental health has been a priority in recent years with the legislative initiative of Law 4421/2017 being an important step. The mental health policies of the states of the world community can exploit quality perspectives in mental health services as the key to safeguarding prosperity results, expressed in principle by deterring human rights abuses and secondly by smoothly reintegrating people facing mental disorders into society. A basic prerequisite for policymaking is therefore the awareness of the entire community of the burdens caused by mental disorders. Establishing more effective measures and mechanisms adapted to Greek standards, will contribute to further improvement of quality and normalization of mental disorders.

Keywords: Health service quality criteria, mental disorders, World Health Organization recommendations, mental health policies