title: Mental health services in Slovenia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Development of mental health services in Slovenia has some originalities described in the present article. Slovenia is a small Central European country with a population of 2 million. Its mental health system has been influenced by the western de-institutionalization movement and eastern models of care which are predominately institutional.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Mental health reform in the 1970s was a silent one with displacement of long-term psychiatric patients to old-people's homes, asylums and to their families. During the last decade community mental health services have been established in the non-government sector, primarily as social institutions providing support to patients with severe mental illness. Psychosocial rehabilitation movement changed some therapeutic approaches in hospitals and has been gaining more and more influence in the NGO services.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The article describes Slovene psychiatric hospitals and community rehabilitation services. Mental health services in Slovenia are compared to services in Slovakia, the United Kingdom and The Netherlands.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The authors are proposing guidelines for future development of mental health services for the severely mentally ill in our country in order to improve the present deficient state of care.
authors.affiliation: University Psychiatric Hospital Ljubljana, Slovenija. vesna.svab@guest.arnes.si
authors.forename: Vesna
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Svab
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tomori
mesh_terms: D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D003156:Community Mental Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003688:Deinstitutionalization; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006760:Hospitalization; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D009426:Netherlands; D018154:Slovakia; D017524:Slovenia; D006113:United Kingdom