He Reina Sofía University Hospital reported this Wednesday, in a statement, that it has detected a increase in demand for care in all age groups, especially in the infant-adolescent stage, and in all types of mental health care (consultations, total and partial hospitalization). This was revealed in the press conference that the health complex has organized on the occasion of Mental Health Day, which is commemorated every year on October 10.
The Delegate of Health and Consumer Affairs, María Jesús Botellathe managing director of the hospital, Francisco Triviño, the head of the Mental Health service, Carmen Prada, and the psychiatrist Fernando Sarramea, have participated in the call together with the president of the Association of Relatives and People with Mental Illness of Córdoba (Asaenec) , Juan Guijo.
The Dr. Carmen Prada has explained that “the increase in demand for care It is experienced in all the health resources that we offer, although in some profiles it is more notable than in others, as is the case of people with predominantly depressive-anxious symptoms and in serious states of behavioral alteration (psychotic, severe affective and mood disorders). personality, among others).
Another of the aspects highlighted in the press conference has been the tendency towards “a less stigmatization of mild pathologies moderate, in which we see that the person who suffers hides their psychological discomfort less and, therefore, there is an approach to seeking help to address it,” said the head of service. “But we also have to be careful with this,” he adds, because “as a side effect it can lead to a ‘psychopathologization’ of non-ill emotional suffering, that is, we think that emotional suffering is an illness.”
At this point, the doctor has made a appeal to society so that this climate of greater awareness also favors the development of social coping that also helps to destigmatize people who suffer from serious pathologies (schizophrenia or bipolar disorder), without detriment to their rights, on an equal basis with other citizens with or without others. types of pathologies.
The Córdoban hospital has a extensive network of healthcare resources to meet this demand which, as they point out, is registering a continuous increase in recent years. The hospital service constitutes the specialized level for meeting the mental health needs of the reference population and offers a wide portfolio of services that includes clinical care, prevention and health promotion. Specifically, it has five community mental health units in Córdoba and the province; the hospitalization unit; the child-youth unit; the rehabilitation and the day hospital, as well as the therapeutic and mid-stay community.
Besides, They work in coordination with other levels of healthcare such as Primary Care, hospital care of other specialties and they collaborate with other sectors (Education, Social Services, Judicial, Associations of family members and users, among others). Added to all this are specific programs aimed at populations at risk of exclusion (in the penitentiary center or with the CoHabita network, among others).
Added to the care work is the teaching job (for the training of specialists in Psychiatry, Clinical Psychology, Specialist Nursing and undergraduate training -degree in Medicine and Nursing-) and researcher of this service.
In the presentation, the Dr. Sarramea has explained one of the latest works carried out by a multidisciplinary team made up of professionals from the Mental Health Intercenter Clinical Management Unit of the Reina Sofía and Infanta Margarita de Cabra University Hospital, IMIBIC (Serious Mental Disorder group) and University of Córdoba.
Innovative study
It is a novel study related to physical illness and mental health that focuses on how smokers with a serious mental disorder (bipolar disorder or schizophrenia) lose lung function before the rest of the population. Respiratory capacity has been measured through FEV1, which counts the amount of air that someone can expel from their lungs in one second (this parameter is a proven predictor of mortality, since as FEV1 is lost, the risk of premature death increases).
This Córdoba’s research team is an international benchmark in the study of respiratory function in this vulnerable population with serious mental health problems. Fundamentally, it focuses its efforts on describing the state of your lung function and understanding the factors that influence its deterioration.
Family photo of the participants in the Reina Sofía mental health assessment
This work, recently published in ‘European Neuropsychopharmacology’, which is among the journals with the greatest impact in the field of psychiatry worldwide, states that more than half of the participants in the study, after a follow-up for 5 years, lost significantly more lung capacity than the general population that does not have this pathology. 60 patients have participated in the research and the work offers novel data that had never been published until now.
He principal investigator of the studypsychiatrist Fernando Sarramea, explains that “this relationship between smoking and serious mental health is especially relevant because we are talking about patients with high rates of premature mortality, as occurs with people with serious mental disorders.” The specialist clarifies that three out of every four premature deaths in the population are serious mental disorders and are due to physical causes (cardiovascular, respiratory diseases or infections, mainly).
He psychiatrist concludes that physical activity is “the only factor capable of stopping the accelerated loss of lung function in these patients». Therefore, the results of the work “reinforce our mission to improve the physical health of people with serious mental disorders and continue to provide innovative solutions that can improve their quality of life and reduce their premature mortality.”
Next to Fernando Sarramera are listed as authors of the study Cristina Ruiz (family doctor), Nuria Feu (pulmonologist), Cristina Camacho (biologist), Mª José Jaén (psychiatrist and professor at the UCO), Marta Rodríguez (nurse), Gloria del Pozo (nurse) and the residents of psychiatry Micaela Reyes, Rosa Fiestas, David Lagua and Ana Jimenez. Likewise, David Mannino (pulmonologist at the University of Kentucky) and Eduard Vieta (head of the psychiatry service at the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and one of the main international experts in bipolar disorder) have collaborated on the work. ).
Activity balance
The Mental Health Unit professionals During the past year, the hospital treated some 150 people in day hospitalcarrying out more than 3,000 therapeutic interventions in partial hospitalization modality. As highlighted by the head of service, Carmen Prada, “this resource offers a wide variety of intensive programs aimed mainly at patients suffering from moderate-severe psychopathology, providing treatment for people who, due to their complexity, require intensive and highly specific interventions.” , seeking improvement, disappearance or reduction of symptoms and acting on the social and family circumstances that modulate the course of the response to treatments and the prognosis of the disease.
On the other hand, the consultation activity balance of the year 2023 indicates that 23,878 people were attended in this period, which represents an increase of 5% compared to the previous year and 10% if we compare it with 2021. The care for these people generated 105,052 consultations (first consultations, follow-up, psychotherapies, home visits, evaluation examinations, among others), of which 20,027 corresponded to the population under 18 years of age. The latter are cared for in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Unit (USMIJ), located at the Los Morales Hospital, through which assistance is offered to patients from 0 to 18 years of age with eating disorders, children with autism and other generalized developmental complications, among others.
In addition, the service has another device, the therapeutic community, which assists in medium and long-stay hospitalization and in the day program cases of prolonged active severe psychopathology, which require intensive interventions for the stabilization of symptoms and reintegration into socio-familial environments. During the past year, hospital professionals treated 27 people who needed complete hospitalization in this resource, in which another 50 people were also treated in their day program.
As for the hospitalization unit located in the Provincial Hospital, in which the adult population in psychopathological clinical situations is treated in a short-stay complete hospitalization regime, 790 episodes were attended to (about 150 more than the previous year).
All these resources allow us to offer a healthcare activity in all age groups of the population and organize it based on internal, close, fluid and coordinated operating procedures between all these devices, with the aim of offering coordination and continuity of care, key in this patient profile. To achieve this, the hospital has a staff of 200 professionals from different disciplines (psychiatry, psychology, social work, nursing, guards, etc.) who offer comprehensive care.