Community mental health services and responsibility of psychiatrists in Italy: Lessons for the globe

Basaglia’s reforms of Italian psychiatry led to the development of Community Mental Health Services which replaced the asylums with a remarkable change of perspective. The main aim was to treat patients in the community and no longer in the hospitals. The Italian model and its development influenced similar reforms in some other countries over the years. Also, we believe that it had a major impact on the legal responsibility of psychiatrists in Italy. The management of acute and chronic psychiatric disorders in the community remains a hugely complex and risky task. Italian psychiatrists are responsible to be able to deal with several social and legal issues related to psychiatric disorders. Moreover, the development of this community-based model has influenced Courts’ decisions over the decades, and those legal decisions have changed psychiatrists’ attitudes as well as their perspectives as discussed in this article.