Literacy on mood disorders and co-morbid disorders

The "Literacy on mood disorders and co-morbid disorders" programme is a continuation and extension of the innovative "Increasing Mental Health Literacy to Manage Mood Disorders" programme. The programme is based on the concept of mental health literacy, which incorporates a person's cognitive and social skills to access, understand and critically use information to promote and maintain mental health. This approach provides a broader view of mental health as it includes skills to manage risk factors, strengthen protective factors, recognise problems more quickly, reduce (self-)stigma and have more realistic expectations about the impact of their treatment. In order to impart knowledge that takes into account the broader social context of understanding health and illness, the programme's activities are multidisciplinary in nature. In addition to experts from the Institute of Social Medicine at the ZRC SAZU, colleagues from the Karakter Institute and the Altra and Projekt Človek associations are also involved. A diverse team of experts (psychiatrists, psychotherapists, anthropologists, psychologists, social workers, sociologists and philosophers) will pool their years of experience in the field of mental health promotion and aim to improve the general population's knowledge about diabetes.

The main goal of the programme is to improve knowledge about mental disorders, as various data show that they are still little known among the Slovenian population. However, experts estimate that their prevalence will increase rapidly in the future compared to other disease categories. Unfortunately, high-quality programmes for mental health promotion, prevention, early detection and treatment of mental health problems and various interventions (psychotherapy, rehabilitation and social integration as well as destigmatisation programmes) are still not equally accessible to all people in all regions of Slovenia. Therefore, the programme aims to improve access to various information related to the early detection of mental health problems and available forms of (self-)help through face-to-face training and an online platform, thus helping to increase the level of mental health literacy in Slovenia among different population groups.

The programme is innovative in several respects:

- It targets both the general public and vulnerable groups in the country, especially in regions characterised by particularly unfavourable indicators of health inequalities, and it contributes to strengthening professional capacities in the field of mental health of the population;

- The programme's measures are aimed at the direct training and further education of professionals and service users in the various services in the local areas;

- Training will also be delivered through a freely accessible, multidisciplinary, web-based platform (www.omra.si) that overcomes geographical and time constraints while ensuring sustainable strengthening of professional capacity to address mental health issues and improve the mental health of target groups;

- It includes an innovative qualitative/quantitative approach to evaluate the short-term as well as monitor the long-term impact of the programme.

Key  words: mental health - personality disorders - mood disorders - (self)stigma - education

Key links

·    OMRA spletna stran