ArticleEuropean journal of public health2020
The quantification of the psychiatric revolution: a quasi-natural experiment of the suicide impact of the Basaglia Law.
Article in European journal of public health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Does retirement trigger depressive symptoms? A systematic review and meta-analysis.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2021Pooled it
- Free the Crazy Horse: Franco Basaglia's Revolution in Mental Health and in Society Franco Basaglia and the Treatment of People With Mental Disorders.Journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe Italian 180/1978 reform abolishing asylums is one of the most contested mental health programs ever implemented. It aimed to shift care of mental illness into the community improving outcomes and reducing expenditure. It was a model for successive deinstitutionalization initiatives across Europe and North America. However, there were longstanding concerns that, without expansion of community care, it may have deprived patients with mental illness access to support, placing them at increased risk of suicide.
methodsRegression discontinuity models were used to quantify the association between the number of suicides and the introduction of the Basaglia Law, disaggregated by age-group and gender, covering 20 Italian regions during the period 1975-84. Models were adjusted for potential socio-demographic confounding factors, region-specific fixed effects and pre-existing time-trends.
resultsItalian regions implemented the Basaglia Law to varying degrees over time. We observed that, after adjusting for pre-existing time trends, the implementation was associated with a consistent increase in the number of suicides for all the age-groups [incidence rate ratio, age 15-44: 1.29, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.18-1.41; age 45-74: 1.45, 95% CI 1.37-1.54] and for both genders (males: 1.47, 95% CI 1.41-1.53; females: 1.36, 95% CI 1.25-1.47). Hospital closure appeared to be an important mediating mechanism.
conclusionsThe Basaglia Law was associated with a significant increase in the number of suicides, with evidence of an association with closures of facilities, leaving those with mental illness with nowhere to go, as the envisioned community care structures failed to be developed as originally planned.
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