The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed significant gaps in mental health in terms of unrecognized and unmet needs. The goal was to accurately assess the needs and identify gaps in this area during the epidemiological crisis. A Delphi study to identify the needs was conducted with a group of decision-makers, experts, and users of mental health services. A starting point of the Delphi study was prepared in two working groups, based on recognizable international recommendations and experiences of the practitioners from the field situation. This initial set of emergency measures was supplemented through the first Delphi round, and consensus about the importance was reached in the second round. A total of 41 activities were derived, the vast majority of which were rated with a score of 4 or more. Mental health activities, which should be addressed in terms of needs, can be divided into systemic measures and service measures. This study recognizes a need to reorganize services in the direction of improving local accessibility and strengthening the network of services for immediate responses to the psychological, health, and social needs of individuals, including those arising from crisis situations, such as COVID-19 pandemic. The results of this study are in line with the international recommendations and also influenced the formulation of the Action Plan of the National Mental Health Program, while some of the measures were already implemented during the publication of the research results.

Needs assessment in mental health is a complex and multifaceted process that involves different steps, from assessing mental health needs at the population or individual level to assessing the different needs of individuals or groups of people. This review focuses on quantitative needs assessment tools for people with mental health problems. Our aim was to find all possible tools that can be used to assess different needs within different populations, according to their diverse uses. A comprehensive literature search with the Boolean operators “Mental health” AND “Needs assessment” was conducted in the PubMed and PsychINFO electronic databases. The search was performed with the inclusion of all results without time or other limits. Only papers addressing quantitative studies on needs assessment in people with mental health problems were included. Additional articles were added through a review of previous review articles that focused on a narrower range of such needs and their assessment. Twenty-nine different need-assessment tools specifically designed for people with mental health problems were found. Some tools can only be used by professionals, some by patients, some even by caregivers, or a combination of all three. Within each recognized tool, there are different fields of needs, so they can be used for different purposes within the needs assessment process, according to the final research or clinical aims. The added value of this review is that the retrieved tools can be used for assessment at the individual level, research purposes or evaluation at the outcome level. Therefore, best needs assessment tool can be chosen based on the specific goals or focus of the related needs assessment.

Objective While other models focus more on disease and pathophysiology, the biopsychosocial approach emphasises the importance of human health and disease in their fullest contexts. If we are to gain an insight into physical and psychological health needs, and address them quickly and adequately, it is important that we recognise them already at the family practice stage. An approach that assesses needs at patient level could also be seen as patient-centred care, which is one of the key elements of high-quality care. To the best of our knowledge, no scale for measuring the biopsychosocial approach of family physicians has yet been developed. Design The aim of this study was to develop and validate a scale that measures the biopsychosocial approach of family physicians to their patients through the Delphi and validation process. Setting The scale was developed through the Delphi study and validated by means of significant statistical methods. Pearson’s correlation coefficient, Cronbach’s alpha, the intracorrelation coefficient, the Spearman-Brown coefficient and exploratory factor analysis were applied. Participants Five family physicians took part in a brainstorming process and 24 family medicine experts took part in the Delphi study. For the first part of the validation process, there were 31 family medicine trainees in the first group and 32 in the second group. For the last part of the validation process, 164 family physicians completed the scale. Result Through the Delphi study, 39 final items covering three areas within the biopsychosocial approach were identified. Construct validity was high, with positive linear correlation and good face validity. The intraclass correlation coefficient for test–retest reliability was 0.862. The Spearman-Brown coefficient was the highest (0.931) on an even and odd division. Factor rotation showed that three factors on 35 items explained 39.5% of variances. The final internal consistency on 35 items was 0.911. Conclusion The developed scale measures the biopsychosocial dimension of family physicians’ work with high Cronbach’s alpha measures and good validity.

Aim: To analyse the relationships between individual social networks and selected indicators of mental health among Slovenian adolescents aged 15 and 17. Methods: Data from the international Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey in 2018 were used. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used to calculate the reliability of the scales. Data were presented using descriptive statistics and frequency distributions. Differences between the two groups were determined using the chi-square or t-test. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to test the associations. Multiple linear regression was also used to explain adolescents’ mental health. Results: The mental health of adolescents is statistically significantly related to the experience of support in their social networks (p≤0.05). Adolescents with better mental health differ from those with poorer mental health in the degree to which they experience support from their social networks. Support from a greater number of social networks is statistically significantly associated with lower perceived stress and the risk of depression. In explaining adolescents’ good mental health, the support of the school environment, i.e. classmates and teachers, proved to be more important than the support of the family. Conclusions: The support of personal social networks is essential for good mental health in young people. In practice, it would be reasonable to strengthen the support of teachers and classmates, as the school environment proved to be a very important source of support at that age.

This multi-authored monograph of review articles and original research papers is part of the innovative prevention and promotion programme, Increasing Mental Health Literacy to Manage Mood Disorders (acronym OMRA). The OMRA practitioners have contributed 16 research papers in the fields of mental health, personality disorders, the stigma of mental disorders, and evaluating the impact of the OMRA programme. Three papers were written by external authors based on their own knowledge and experience in the field of mental health. The authors of the publication are aware that health is not only the absence of disease, but also physical and mental well-being. This does not mean constant elation and happiness, but a state in which a person can cope well with the challenges of everyday life. In contrast to physical illnesses such as diabetes, mental health is much harder to define, which is why this book also aims to raise awareness of the importance of mental health among readers. Everyone will find something interesting and informative in this book and will be able to put this knowledge into practice.