[Psychiatry and mental health in Morocco].
Morocco has a population of some thirty million inhabitants, a very large proportion of whom are young. Mental health and psychiatry are dealt with jointly by the university, public, private, and military sectors. Despite significant progress in the last twenty years, there are still no more than 350 psychiatrists in Morocco (thirty years ago there were fewer than ten...), plus about 60 clinical psychologists, about 400 nurses specializing in psychiatry, and social workers. There are about 1900 psychiatric beds in both specialized hospitals and general hospital psychiatry units located in the main cities. In the teaching sector there are currently four university psychiatry departments, with a total of five full professors, six associate professors and five assistant professors. The National Mental Health Program, launched in 1974 and revised in 1994, was not properly implemented. Several NGOs also work in psychiatry and mental health, including the League for Mental Health and five patient associations. A national survey of the prevalence of mental disorders, completed in 2003 but only made public in 2007, represented a watershed for psychiatry in Morocco: 48.9% of a sample of 5600 persons representative of the general population were found to have a mental disorder, and 26.5% of respondents were depressed. This survey is an invaluable reference for years to come, helping to match mental healthcare provision with real needs. Research activity has also progressed since the early 1980s, as reflected by the number and quality of publications in the different fields, including epidemiology, biological psychiatry, social psychiatry, psychopharmacology and clinical psychopathology. Cultural aspects are a special research focus (suicide and religion, cannabis use, traditional treatments, etc.). International university collaboration has been especially important for Moroccan research. However, despite major progress over the last three decades in the fields of psychiatry and mental health, much remains to be done, notably to bolster child and adolescent psychiatry, and to manage mental illness in small towns and villages, including in the remotest regions.
Moussaoui
Driss
D
Académie nationale de médecine, Maroc.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D035843:Biomedical Research; D002648:Child; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate; D006306:Health Surveys; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008603:Mental Health; D009018:Morocco / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000193:education / Q000639:trends*; D000078329:Workforce