PARTICIPATION OF THE NATIONAL CENTER OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND ANALYSES

On 24- 25 April, 2015 a scientific practical conference entitled "News on treatment modalities" took place in Sofia. Conference organizers are the Collegium “Private Psychiatry”, University "St. Kliment Ohridski" and Sofia Psychiatric Society. Zahari Zarkov, MD, PhD, Head of the Department "Mental Health” at the National Center of Public Health and Analyses presented at the conference the Project "Improved mental health services", financed by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism and the European EconomicArea Financial Mechanism. Team of the NCPHA has been working on the project since December 2014. It is intended to be completed in 2017.

One of the main objectives is to conduct a new study (EPIBUL) for the dynamics in rates of incidence of mentaldisordersand training of GPs for early recognition of depression, anxiety and for suicide prevention. Participants in the conference received information on how as professionals can participate in the project. Project "Joint Action for Mental Health and Well-being" and the work on it was presented by Vladimir Nakov, MD, PhD, Department "Mental Health" at the NCPHA. The main objective of the project is to develop recommendations for action at the European Union level and across the Member-States, which could lead to more effective implementation of mental health systems and services. The group working on the Project recommended to the EU countries to develop and implement policies and services for overcoming the existing shortcomings and gaps in the European system of mental health services, promotion of social services and social inclusion of people with chronic mental disorders. The conference discussed issues such as the masked depression and other mental borderline disorders, psychosomatic diseases, psychoimmunology, treatment with long-acting drugs: injectable and oral, motivation for treatment, etc. Part of participants raised issues related to the lack of an active enoughpolicy of reforming in mental care, lack of resources, problems in the training of clinical psychologists.