History and Process of the Country Stories

The original end-point of the information gathering for the infrastructures questionnaire and database was to map MHP and MDP resources and infrastructures in European countries. The Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection of the European Commission encouraged the extension of this initiative of the IMHPA Network to collect available information on prevention and promotion in mental health as a report to be published. 

This report, “Mental health promotion and mental disorder prevention across European member States: a collection of country stories”, presents a snapshot of the situation of mental health promotion and mental disorder prevention across 30 European countries, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain (Catalonia), Sweden, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom (England and Scotland).

The country stories presented in this report have been prepared by the members of the European IMHPA Network for Mental Health Promotion and Mental Disorder Prevention (see annex I), who are key experts on mental health in their respective countries. For the preparation of this report, the European Network members have involved stakeholders in their countries to collect information about available policies, programmes, workforce and infrastructures for mental health promotion and mental disorder prevention. The European Commission has supported this initiative on the understanding that the country stories are not official and exhaustive reports, but rather a snapshot of current activities.

This document is therefore not an official account, but rather a first attempt to collect some baseline information on ongoing initiatives in countries and regions. The selection of information included and the described programmes and policies should not be interpreted as the only available sources of action nor should they be considered evidence based or recommended action, since the report was not intended to be a completely exhaustive or evaluative exercise, but rather the first stage in a process that hopefully will be updated and extended. We welcome any further information that can help in this process.