[Mental Health First Aid Guidelines for Argentina and Chile: Report on the study to adapt the Australian guidelines].

Background: Mental health problems represent a growing global concern. This has intensified since the coronavirus pandemic and is also partly due to greater awareness of the extent of mental health problems and the lack of attention they have received over time. In many high-income countries, increases in service provision have been accompanied by efforts to increase the mental health literacy of the general population.

[Innovative technology and mental health care. Survey on the usage of WhatsApp among Argentinian psychiatrists and psychologists].

Objective: Communication between patients and mental health professionals by means of messaging platforms in the interval between synchronous encounters became a kind of asynchronous teleconsultation (AT) whose usefulness and effect on providers’ workload have not been explored. Method: Mental health providers working in Argentina were invited to answer a survey exploring the intensity and usefulness of AT, and the resulting overload.

Results: A total of 527 responses from professionals working throughout the country were received.

Development of mental health first-aid guidelines for a person after a potentially traumatic event: A Delphi expert consensus study in Argentina and Chile.

Background: Exposure to potentially traumatic events increases the risk of a person developing a mental disorder. Training community members to offer support to a person during and after a traumatic situation may help lower this risk. This study reports on the cultural adaptation of Australian mental health first aid guidelines for individuals exposed to a potentially traumatic event to the Chilean and Argentinian context.

Development of mental health first-aid guidelines for psychosis: a Delphi expert consensus study in Argentina and Chile.

Background: Psychotic symptoms may be less common than anxiety or affective symptoms, but they are still frequent and typically highly debilitating. Community members can have a role in helping to identify, offer initial help and facilitate access to mental health services of individuals experiencing psychosis. Mental health first aid guidelines for helping a person experiencing psychosis have been developed for the global north.

'We see they are abandoned': Social support between people discharged from long-term psychiatric hospitalizations and their neighbors in Argentina.

Background: Neighbors are an important component of personal social network (PSN) and despite their peripheral role and being considered as familiar strangers, they typically provide instrumental support. For people who is discharged after long-term psychiatric hospitalizations, neighbors would offer other types of social support and play a different role fostering the process of becoming full member of a given community.

Aims: To analyze the effects of neighboring on both, those who have had long-term psychiatric hospitalizations and their neighbors.

Repercussions of COVID-19 on psychiatric inpatient care in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Objetive: To characterise the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on psychiatric hospitalisations in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region.

Methods: Descriptive study. 85 semi-structured interviews were conducted with health workers involved with psychiatric hospitalisations in general hospitals (GHs) and specialised psychiatric hospitals (SHs) from 18 LAC countries.

Development of mental health first-aid guidelines for depression: a Delphi expert consensus study in Argentina and Chile.

Background: Depression is one of the most common mental health problems worldwide and, while prevalence rates in Latin America are relatively high, most people who meet the criteria for diagnosis do not receive treatment. Family and friends of a person with depression can play an important role in supporting a person to seek and engage with treatment. However, many people do not have the necessary skills or confidence to help.

'Now you will understand what it is like to be confined': Did COVID-19 lockdowns affect perceptions about long-term psychiatric hospitalizations? A report from Argentina.

Background: Lockdowns have been one of the government's primary measures to control COVID-19, especially during the initial waves of the pandemic, but there is concern on the impact of lockdowns on people's mental health. Confinement is still today the reality of many people with severe mental illness in many places of the world.

Objective: Given that the general population experienced confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, we sought to explore if that affected perceptions about long-term psychiatric hospitalizations.

"About Navigating Chaos": Latin American and Caribbean Mental Health Workers' Personal Impact Due to SARS-CoV-2 in the First Hundred Days.

The personal impact of COVID-19 on mental health care workers (MHWs) has received scarce attention despite their work addressing the emotional wellbeing of those affected by the pandemic. This study aims to analyze Latin American and Caribbean's MHWs' subjective impact in connection to working during the initial times of the pandemic. One hundred and fifty-five persons ( = 155) from seventeen countries were contacted in May-June 2020 through a snowball approach.

Development of mental health first aid guidelines for problem drinking: a Delphi expert consensus study in Argentina and Chile.

Background: Among all psychoactive substances, alcohol consumption presents the most significant public health problem and is a leading risk factor for overall disease burden in Latin America. However, most people who meet criteria for a substance use disorder do not receive treatment in primary or secondary care sources. Community members can play a role in helping people to seek help as they are likely to encounter people experiencing problem drinking and recognize the signs.

[Subjective impact of COVID-19 pandemic among mental health service workers in Argentina].

Introduction: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health workers has been studied on an international level. However, mental health workers, who are also called upon to address such ailments both in the general population as well as in the health personnel, have not been asked about their experiences.

Methods: Seventy mental health workers in five regions of Argentina were interviewed between May and June 2020 regarding the subjective impact of changes in their work due to the pandemic.

[Repercussions of COVID-19 on psychiatric inpatient care in Latin America and the Caribbean].

Objetive: To characterise the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on psychiatric hospitalisations in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region.

Methods: Descriptive study. 85 semi-structured interviews were conducted with health workers involved with psychiatric hospitalisations in general hospitals (GHs) and specialised psychiatric hospitals (SHs) from 18 LAC countries.

Implementation of a pilot community-based psychosocial intervention for patients with psychoses in Chile and Brazil: a comparative analysis of users' perspectives.

Background: Few studies provide clear rationale for and the reception of adaptations of evidence-based interventions. To address this gap, we describe the context-dependent adaptations in critical time intervention-task shifting (CTI-TS), a manualized recovery program for individuals with psychosis in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Santiago, Chile. Implications of the adaptations - incorporating a task-shifting approach and modifying the mode of community-based service delivery - are examined from users' perspectives.

'Love comes first, and it is ahead of any different political partisanism': How political polarizations compare to other forms of discrimination in Buenos Aires (Argentina).

Background: Affective polarization and stigma toward individuals with schizophrenia and toward immigrants in Argentina are not new despite its importance and dissemination. However, no research has been conducted taking into consideration political partisanship and attitudes toward these groups.

Aims: Political polarization and attitudes toward socialization across party lines are studied in conjunction with attitudes toward immigrants and toward individuals with schizophrenia.

Understanding Users' Perspectives of Psychosocial Mechanisms Underpinning Peer Support Work in Chile.

This study explores the beliefs and attitudes about the psychosocial mechanisms of peer support work among users who participated in Critical Time Intervention-Task Shifting (CTI-TS), which tested the acceptability and feasibility of a peer support work model to improve community-based mental health care for individuals with psychosis in Latin America. We conducted a secondary analysis of 15 in-depth interviews with CTI-TS participants in Chile, using the framework method and defined the framework domains based on five major mechanisms of peer support work identified by a recent literature review. The analysis revealed that users' perceptions of peer support work mechanisms were strongly shaped by personal motivations, beliefs about professional hierarchies, familial support, and the Chilean mental health system's incipient recovery orientation.

Implementing a community-based task-shifting psychosocial intervention for individuals with psychosis in Chile: Perspectives from users.

Background: Latin America, and Chile in particular, has a rich tradition of community mental health services and programs. However, in vivo community-based psychosocial interventions, especially those with a recovery-oriented approach, remain scarce in the region. Between 2014 and 2015, a Critical Time Intervention-Task Shifting project (CTI-TS) was implemented in Santiago, Chile, as part of a larger pilot randomized control trial.

[Mental health laws and the psychiatric reform in Latin America: Multiple paths to its implementation].

This paper describes and analyzes the psychiatric reform process in three Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile and Colombia) based on the Caracas Declaration of 1990. It compares the psychiatric reform processes in these three countries and highlights the role of national mental health laws in these processes. Our goal when investigating the experiences in other countries of Latin America is to draw conclusions for the Argentine psychiatric reform and for the future of such reforms in the region.

The mental health users' movement in Argentina from the perspective of Latin American Collective Health.

The mental health users' movement is a worldwide phenomenon that seeks to resist disempowerment and marginalisation of people living with mental illness. The Latin American Collective Health movement sees the mental health users' movement as an opportunity for power redistribution and for autonomous participation. The present paper aims to analyze the users' movement in Argentina from a Collective Health perspective, by tracing the history of users' movement in the Country.

["Tell me how it is evaluated, and I will tell you what it is": What recovery evaluation is adding to the understanding of recovery].

The concept of "recovery" is still controversial as to what its principal components/dimensions are. From the perspective of a mental health professional, recovery is related to a clinical improvement and to a higher functioning. However, from a users' perspective, its major component is related to hope and having a meaningful life.