The WPA Action Plan is in progress
Authors: MARIO MAJ
Journal: World Psychiatry (2009)

During the past few months, the WPA has started the implementation of all the items of its Action Plan 2008–2011. This report summarizes some of the activities which have been initiated. One of the institutional goals of the Association during the triennium is to enhance the image of psychiatry worldwide among the general public, health professionals and policy makers, counteracting some negative messages — often biased by ideological prejudice — which are affecting the motivation of persons with mental disorders and their families to seek for psychiatric advice and help and to adhere to psychiatric interventions, as well as the motivation of medical students to choose psychiatry as a career. As one of the activities pursuing this institutional goal, the WPA has issued a call for research projects aimed to explore the factors facilitating and those hampering the choice of psychiatry as a career by medical students, and to suggest strategies to encourage this choice. The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2009. The call is available on the WPA website (www.wpanet.org). The WPA appointed a press agent who is producing press releases on topics relevant to mental health. A press release dealing with the Iraq Mental Health Survey, which appears in this issue of World Psychiatry, has resulted in a wide media coverage, including articles in the Herald Tribune, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Press releases focusing on presentations delivered at the Florence WPA Congress have resulted in articles published in several newspapers, including the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph. The WPA is producing a series of guidelines on issues of great practical relevance, which will be published in World Psychiatry, translated in several languages and posted on the WPA website. The guidelines will deal with: a) protection and promotion of mental health in children of persons with severe mental disorders; b) steps, obstacles and mistakes to avoid in the implementation of community mental health care; c) how to combat stigmatization of psychiatry and psychiatrists; d) mental health and mental health care in migrants. Four task forces have been appointed, under the leadership, respectively, of I. Brockington, G. Thornicroft, N. Sartorius and D. Bhugra. The WPA has finalized with the World Health Organization (WHO) a work plan for the triennium, including the following items: a) revision of the ICD-10 chapter on mental and behavioural disorders; b) collaboration in the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP); c) partnership on mental health care in emergencies; d) collaboration in the area of substance abuse; e) partnership on involvement of users and carers. The text of the work plan is available on the WPA website. Within the frame of this work plan, the WHO and the WPA will organize in Geneva, from 27 to 31 July 2009, a training workshop on prevention and management of mental health consequences of disasters and conflicts. The call for applications is available on the WPA website. The WPA has launched a programme of research fellowships for early-career psychiatrists from low- and lower-middle income countries, in collaboration with internationally recognized centers of excellence in psychiatry. These centers include at the moment: the Western Psychiatric Institute, University of Pittsburgh, USA (coordinator: D. Kupfer); the Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK (coordinators: S. Kapur, M. Prince); the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA (coordinator: A. Bellack); the Mood Disorders Program, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA (coordinator: J. Calabrese); the University of Melbourne, Australia (coordinator: P. McGorry). Three calls for applications are already available on the WPA website. The WPA Zonal Representatives and Member Societies are participating in a survey on the availability, feasibility and acceptability of evidence-based interventions for various mental disorders in the different regions of the world. The results will be included in a paper for the Lancet. The WPA is developing a train-the-trainers programme on integration of mental health into primary care, targeting nurses and clinical officers working in dispensaries and health centers in selected low-income countries. A first workshop took place in Ibadan, Nigeria, on January 26–30, 2009. A report is available on the WPA website. The WPA has started a programme aiming to raise the awareness of the prevalence and prognostic implications of depression in persons with physical diseases. Three books are being produced, dealing respectively with depression and diabetes, depression and cardiovascular disease, and depression and cancer. Three corresponding sets of slides will be developed, which will be translated in several languages and posted on the WPA website. The WPA is collecting reports on exemplary experiences in the mental health field from the various regions of the world. A first series of reports is already available on the WPA website. The WPA has issued a call for research projects to be conducted by its Scientific Sections. The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2009. The call is available on the Association's website. The WPA is developing a programme of high-quality itinerant educational workshops, to be replicated in its four regions. The first workshops of this programme are scheduled in Abuja, Nigeria (October 2009), Sao Paulo, Brazil (November 2009), and Dhaka, Bangladesh (January 2010). The WPA has recently launched the Russian edition of World Psychiatry, in addition to the English, Spanish and Chinese editions, already available for many years. Selected articles from the journal are being translated in further languages (e.g., Polish, Romanian and Bosnian) and posted on the WPA website and/or those of relevant Member Societies. The WPA is supporting a series of workshops on leadership and professional development of young psychiatrists, led by N. Sartorius. A workshop was held in Singapore on February 24–28, 2009. The next one will take place in Abuja, Nigeria, in October 2009. The WPA International Congress "Treatments in Psychiatry: A New Update" took place in Florence on April 1–4, 2009, with the participation of more than 9,000 delegates from 125 countries. The scientific programme included presentations by many of the most prominent international experts in the various treatment areas, including the scientists who attracted the highest total citations of their papers in indexed journals of psychiatry and psychology over the past 10 years, according to the Essential Science Indicators.