Trent'anni di legge 180: dalla gestione della cronicità alla possibilità di cura.

The aim of this article is to describe the current situation of the Italian mental health system thirty years after the proclamation of law 180, to assess the quality, accessibility, adequacy, acceptability and continuity of the treatments offered, by presenting a series of data found within the most important epidemiological studies carried out at a national level. From what has emerged we are able to gather that structural, organizational and methodological factors insure that the system appears strongly conditioned by the necessity to manage pathologies which have already become chronic at the expense of the possibility of fostering, stimulating and supporting operations directed at preventing chronicity itself through diagnosis and early intervention. Practical changes and theoretical transformations are therefore not only necessary but urgent if we want to carry out a conceptual and practical revolution within the Italian mental health system; something which must still be achieved.