Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-fwgfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T06:24:37.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mental healthcare in Poland

Part of: BJPsych International Country Profiles Collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Jacek Bomba
Jacek Bomba*
Affiliation:
Psychiatry, Jagiellonian University Collegium Medicum, Kopernika 21 A, 31 501 Kraków, Poland, email jacek.bomba@uj.edu.pl
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Modern mental healthcare in Poland has its foundations in the 19th century, when the country was subject to three different organisational and legal systems — of the Austrian, Prussian and Russian Empires. These differences prevailed even after the First World War. Professionals lobbying for a mental health act had no success. The Second World War left mental healthcare with significant losses among its professional groups. More than half of all Polish psychiatrists lost their lives; some of them were exterminated as Jews, some as prisoners of the Soviets. The Nazi occupation in Poland had dramatic consequences for people with a mental disturbance, as Action T4 turned into genocide on the Polish territory. The majority of psychiatric in-patients were killed. After the Second World War, the mental health system had to be rebuilt, almost from scratch. Major political changes in the country across the second part of the 20th century and revolutionary changes in mental healthcare around the world influenced psychiatric services. The purpose of this paper is to describe mental healthcare in Poland today.

Type
Country Profile
Information
International Psychiatry , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 10 - 12
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2008

References

Aleksandrowicz, J. (1991) Psychotherapiefgorschung in Polen. [Psychotherapy research in Poland.] In Psychoterapie in der Medizin [Psychotherapy in medicine] (ed. Brahler, E.). Westd Verl.Google Scholar
Bomba, J. & Cichocki, Ł. (2005) Czy neuroscience wyjasnia efekty psychoterapii schizofrenii? [Does neuroscience explain the effects of psychotherapy in schizophrenia?] Psychoterapia, 2, 5–11.Google Scholar
Bomba, J., Szymusik, A. & Piotrowski, A. (1993) Psychiatry in Eastern Europe. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 988–989.Google ScholarPubMed
Buda, B., Gondios, A. & Demetrovics, Z. (eds) (1998) Costs of Rights in Psychiatry. CLPI.Google Scholar
Cechnicki, A. (1998) Analiza wpływu wybranych czynników na wyniki leczenia w obszarze społecznym. Krakowskie prospektywne badania przebiegu schizofrenii. [Selected factors impact on social area results of schizophrenia treatment. The Krakow prospective follow-up study.] Badania Nad Schizofrenia, 1, 37–48.Google Scholar
Heitzman, J. & Rutkowski, K. (2002) Mental disturbances in former political prisoners persecuted in Poland in the years 1944–1956. Dialog. Zeszyty Polsko–Niemieckiego Towarzystwa Zdrowia Psychicznego, Hefte dre Deutsch–Polnishen Gesellschaft fur Seeliche Gesundheit, 11, 206–211.Google Scholar
Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology (2006) Zakłady psychiatrycznej oraz neurologicznej opieki zdrowotnej. Rocznik statystyczny 2005. [Psychiatric and neurological health care services. Statistical yearly 2005.] Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology.Google Scholar
Józefik, B. & Pilecki, M. (2004) Therapeutic implications of the individual, familial and cultural context of eating disorders in Poland. World Psychiatry, 3 (suppl. 1), 293.Google Scholar
Kepinski, A. (1970) The so-called ‘KZ-syndrom’ – an attempt at a synthesis. Przeglad Lekarski, 26, 18–23. Reprinted in Przeglad Lekarski, Krakow, 141–156 (ed. J. Z. Ryn, 2002).Google Scholar
Meder, J. & Cechnicki, A. (2002) Rehabilitation of the mentally ill in Poland. In Images in Psychiatry. Poland (eds Bilikiewicz, A. & Rybakowski, J.), pp. 142–157. WPA, PTP, Via Medica.Google Scholar
Orwid, M., Domagalska-Kurdziel, E., Kaminska, M., et al (2002) The Holocaust in Polish publications. In Images in Psychiatry. Poland (eds Bilikiewicz, A. & Rybakowski, J.), pp. 83–114. WPA, PTP, Via Medica.Google Scholar
Zieba, A., Dudek, D. & Jawor, M. (1997) Cognitive style in depressed patients over three-year follow-up. European Journal of Psychiatry, 11, 244–250.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.