Adnkronos Rome, October 14 (Adnkronos Salute) – More than 9 million people in Italy live with mental and behavioral disorders, yet only 9% of them (approximately 777) are served by mental health departments, primarily due to stigma and difficulty accessing services. Too often, the spaces dedicated to caring for these individuals fail to reflect the importance of the journey undertaken there, with unwelcoming spaces, inadequate furnishings, and environments that don't truly support those who experience them every day.
Humanizing care pathways, experts state in a statement, is a priority today, "to foster patient empowerment and better support the work of healthcare professionals." To make care facilities more suitable for care, Lundbeck Italia continues its commitment with the "Coloring the Places of Brain Health" project. Launched in Milan in 2024, with the goal of extending across Italy to redesign spaces dedicated to the care of brain diseases, the initiative, according to the statement, arrives today in Campania, in Salerno, with the inauguration of the renovated waiting room of the ASL Mental Health Department on Via Martin Luther King, in the presence of the highest regional institutions.
"This project is part of the complexity of a large organization that develops services for citizens. Humanizing spaces as well as procedures, and thus enhancing the beauty of the environments, brings the ASL closer to the citizens it serves," explains Gennaro Sosto, General Manager of the Salerno ASL. "Promoting mental health has always been one of the most promising aspects of healthcare innovation, also in terms of humanizing care and care processes. These initiatives strengthen and revitalize the centrality of the person, rather than the patient, in treatment pathways."
"Today we are observing a complex phenomenon: youth mental health distress is increasingly widespread, while true psychiatric illness affects a more limited number of people," emphasizes Giulio Corrivetti, director of the Department of Mental Health at the Salerno Local Health Authority and a psychiatrist. "However, a significant proportion of conditions that initially fall within the scope of distress tend to evolve into full-blown psychiatric disorders. We are witnessing two critical trends: on the one hand," he explains, "an increase in the number of young people whose distress is transforming into pathology, partly due to social determinants such as substance abuse or irregular lifestyles that act as stressors on a basis of neurodevelopmental vulnerability; on the other, a progressive lowering of the age of onset. Today, approximately 75% of psychiatric illnesses begin before the age of 24, and the forms we encounter are very different from those of the past: fewer classic schizophrenias and psychoses, and more temporary and multifactorial forms of psychopathology, often linked to substance use, with acute but reversible symptoms."
This "offers greater opportunities for recovery," Corrivetti continues, "especially if we intervene early and in youth-focused facilities like our Department, which offers child neuropsychiatry, eating disorders, a center for early psychopathology, and a dentistry unit dedicated to people with mental disabilities. Through the 'Let's Color the Places of Brain Health' project, we will be able to welcome young people into a facility truly designed for them and focus on their mental well-being."
The project, Lundbeck Italia explains, aims to redesign the spaces dedicated to the care of people with mental illnesses, placing the person at the center, recognizing that spaces are a crucial component of the treatment journey and that a welcoming and functional space can better support the person behind the illness. Based on the needs of the participating centers, the initiative envisions a redefinition of the spaces in line with the treatment options offered, including minor renovations, the provision of furnishings and fixtures, and the beautification of the spaces by installing works from "People In Mind," a graphic arts competition promoted by the pharmaceutical company to raise awareness of overcoming stigma and prejudice through the universal and inclusive language of art. The initiative also plans to measure the project's impact on healthcare workers and patients through a scientifically conducted survey before and after the space modifications.
The next step will be to redesign the multipurpose room in the Mental Health Department of the Bari Local Health Authority, which will be inaugurated in November. The project will subsequently expand to other mental health centers and become a broader initiative, extending to Italian neurological centers in 2026, continuing to promote a person-centered approach to care. "We firmly believe that those entering healthcare facilities should feel welcomed as individuals, even before they feel welcomed as patients," says Tiziana Mele, CEO of Lundbeck Italy. "A harmonious environment can offer strength and serenity to those coping with illness, as well as to those who dedicate their professionalism to caring for others every day. The 'Coloriamo i luoghi della salute del cervello' (Coloring the Places of Brain Health) project was born from the desire to promote a new culture of well-being in spaces dedicated to brain health, through concrete interventions and collaborations with healthcare facilities. With this initiative," she concludes, "we are strengthening the synergy between the public and private sectors, convinced that only through active collaboration can projects of real value for people living with neurological and psychiatric disorders be born."