Mental health and psychiatric care in Mexico

Abstract

The characteristics of mental health are described within the frame of social health, by offering a brief overview about their present situation in Mexico, according to official data. The epidemiologically most important psychiatric syndromes referred for care in the National Health Plan are reviewed. The Plan’s activities and tasks regarding its goals and objectives are described. The data obtained serve as indirect indicators of the problem and allow to infer the degree of social impact of the country’s psychiatric condition. Some difficulties inherent to the supply-receipt in the health-care system for both service users and the institutions that offer it, in terms of location, infrastructure, organization, etc., in contrast with international recommendations are pointed out. Reference to the proposal and development of a National Mental Health Care Model –including addictions–, in which the creation of new structures of attention is envisaged, based on respect for the patients’ right to receive an quality integral medicalpsychiatric care, through a model capable of providing an efficient network of services with appropriate choices for prevention, hospitalization and psychosocial reintegration of these patients.