Suicide attempts to decrease by 10% in Bulgaria is the main objective of Project "Improved Mental Health Care Services" by NCPHA, supported by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism and the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area. This will be achieved by increasing the knowledge of the society for anxiety and depression, which are the basis of the suicide attempts.
GPs, psychologists and social workers are trained for the early detection of these disorders.
Experts from the Regional Health Inspection of the Ministry of Health are trained to work with children in the schools on topics like depression, anxiety, aggression and self-aggression.
Since the beginning of 2017, an online platform for data on suicide attempts has launched. The information collected and analyzed trough the platform will be more complete and reliable.
А new epidemiological study named Epibul - 2 is on its final stage. It will take into account the prevalence of common mental disorders in Bulgaria. The data analysis will take into account changes in the prevelence of these diagnoses over the past 10 years and will serve to be a better health policy on these issues.
The project took a public campaign to raise awareness of people’s mental health problems and suicidal behavior. A brochure with useful information about depression and anxiety was prepared, printed and distributed across the country, as well as information leaflet about child aggression in schools and how to overcome it. Four seminars with experts from the fields of psychiatry and public communications, trained media professionals whose work is related to cover mental illness and suicides. Six TV shows were broadcasted in highly rated national TV stations and 8 radio interviews on national radio. 10 informations and interviews were also published in national daily paper and 12 material in regional newspapers. As an echo of all the activities of the public campaign from early December 2016 to 15 March 2017 shows that the total number of news broadcasts on various TV channels is more than 20, in print media more than 40 publications and online media 200. The information campaign videos (3-minute and 10-minute) were available in 10 news sites and health portals.
A new bilingual website was created and popularized, on which are available all printed and electronic materials from the project “Improved mental health care services.”
The project activities are implemented through seven public procurement of WHO, which have all passed successfully and without appeals.