La reforma psiquiátrica en Chile: precedencia histórica de los problemas del alcohol (1942-2000)

Abstract

Phsychiatric Hospitals dominate the first century of the care of mental patients in Chile: 1852- 1951 . Since 1952 a net of institutions in General Hospitals, and since 1968, the addition of community programs, inted to substitute Psychiatric Hospitals, in the name of Psychiatric Reform. Three periods of the Chilean Psychiatric Reform are proposed. 1) 1942- 1967, of creative contributions. 2) 1.968 - l989, with creative and regresive events. and 3) 1990-2000, with restauration and development of official institutions. Singular freatures of Chilean Psychiatric Reform are: 1) A tematic reform, applied to Alcohol Problems, precedes. with a men of 7.8 years, the development of general Mental Health Reform. 2) The Reform begins at the Universidad de Chile (1942- 1952); the National Health Service mas founded only in 1952. 3) Progress is attained by demonstration effects, lacking a control management and the use ad-hoc of legislation. 4) Training of residents in Community Mental Health (1968- 1973) has been and important factor. 5) 17 (1973- 1989) of the 58 years analized, almost are third of the total, were of total paralysis and regression of activities. Studies on the economic cost of Alcohol Problems in Chile, and recintly the high quality of International research on the subject (OMS Europa 1994), and the expansion of the use of ilicit drugs in Chile, since 1985, may consolidate the position of Alcohol Problems as a leading subject of the next century.