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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

EV0965

Community-based psychiatry in Romania: challenges, progress, and future perspectives

COMMUNITY PSYCHIATRY IN ROMANIA: CHALLENGES, PROGRESS, AND PERSPECTIVES

Romania is moving from a hospital-centered model toward a more balanced system, but fragmented progress needs to be transformed into a coherent, equitable, and sustainable continuum of community mental health care.

The poster defines community-based psychiatry not merely as care delivered outside hospitals, but as an approach that places the person rather than the institution at its center, combining symptom control with autonomy, continuity, recovery, and social participation, and assesses the situation in Romania. The country is undergoing a transition that retains the essential role of hospitals in acute and specialized care while developing community services for prevention, follow-up, psychosocial rehabilitation, and continuity of care. National figures indicate 52 community mental health centers, 34 psychiatric hospitals, and 0.9 psychiatric beds per 1,000 people. Gaps in care include unequal geographical access outside urban areas, an insufficient and unevenly distributed specialist workforce, weak integration between mental health services and social, education, and employment services, fragmented post-discharge support, and limited psychosocial rehabilitation, with a resulting risk of recurrent crises and revolving-door admissions. The proposed care continuum extends from acute/specialized hospital care to community mental health centers, interdisciplinary follow-up, psychosocial and social rehabilitation, and recovery and social participation. Progress includes existing community mental health centers, interdisciplinary initiatives and civil society partnerships, and a national policy that includes developing the mental health network; priorities for the next phase are integrated local networks and clear care pathways, mobile interdisciplinary teams and crisis/home treatment capacity, systematic post-discharge follow-up, supported housing, vocational rehabilitation and peer/family support, as well as sustainable funding, workforce development, and outcome monitoring. Sources cited are OECD Sağlık Sistemleri Raporu Romanya 2025 (OECD Health Systems Report Romania 2025), data from the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, and the National Health Strategy 2024–2030; it is noted that the service development measures are presented as priorities rather than established nationwide practices.

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