The Unit conducts studies on factors that determine the frequency of psychiatric disorders and their consequences on mental health services' utilisation (in particular, socio-economic status and urbanisation) and on mental health care quality. Moreover, the mortality among psychiatric patients has been analysed in a series of studies. The Unit has also a specific interest in studying the inequalities and the social determinants that influence the access to social and health services in general and, in particular, for LGBT people.
The analyses that we conduct in the field of mental health care economics include funding systems, resources allocation, effects of the funding systems on mental health care quality, direct and indirect costs of care and burden of diseases.
The Unit coordinates the Verona Psychiatric Case Register (PCR) that was started on 31 December 1978 and is used for clinical, administrative and research purposes (longitudinal analyses of patterns of care, studies on incidence, prevalence and related factors, services utilisation, comparisons with other case-register areas and costs of care and outcome).
The Unit is involved in validating clinical instruments such as the DIP (Diagnostic Interview for Psychosis, Italian Version) and conducting studies about the compassion fatigue of social and clinical workers.
Recent research projects funded by EU include the REFINEMENT (Research on Financing Systems’ Effect on the Quality of Mental Health Care), the CEPHOS-LINK (Comparative Effectiveness Research on Psychiatric Hospitalisation by Record Linkage of Large Administrative Data Sets), the Health4LGBTI (Reducing Health Inequalities Experienced by LGBTI People) and the EMMY (Welfare, Wellbeing and Demographic Change: Understanding Welfare Models within the Joint Programming Initiative “More Years, Better Lives”).
The members of the Unit have published so far many papers on peer-reviewed journals and the Coordinator (Professor Francesco Amaddeo) is one of the Editors of Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (IF 2.918) and Past President of Italian Society of Psychiatric Epidemiology (SIEP).
- Contact people
-
Francesco Amaddeo