title: Mental health services development in Latin America and the Caribbean: achievements, barriers and facilitating factors.
abstract: Mental health services reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean in the last 20 years have led to a significant improvement of mental health services. They also contributed to the development of new evidence that may help the implementation of future reforms. These advances, however, were clearly insufficient to respond to the huge challenges countries of Latin American and the Caribbean face to improve mental health services. Insufficient funding, one of the most important barriers to mental health services development found in most countries, was related to the absence of a strong consensus among all stakeholders and the weakness of user and family associations. Other barriers were the lack of technical capacity of the coordination unit responsible for development of services in the ministries of health, resistance from professionals towards changing to new models of care and lack of human resources. Transition to democracy in some countries and natural disasters proved to be windows of opportunity for mental health services reform. Facilitating factors included alliance with the human rights defence movement, development of research capacity in Latin American and the Caribbean countries, and international cooperation.
authors.affiliation: Chronic Diseases Research Center (CEDOC) and the Department of Mental Health, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campo dos Mártires da Pátria, 130, 1169-056 Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Caldas de Almeida
mesh_terms: D017691:Caribbean Region; D003906:Developing Countries; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007843:Latin America; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008605:Mental Health Services; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D016730:Program Development / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Barriers; Latin America; Mental health; Reform