[Mental Illness 2014; 6:5142] [page 5]

The family’s role in patient care was greatly altered by Law 180. This law, introduced in Italy in 1978, led to a gradual phasing out of custodial treatment for psychiatric patients. This different mindset, which views the family as an alternative to institutionalization, leads to it being seen as an essential entity in the setting up of community service dynamics. We interviewed health professionals in order to understand obstacles of collaboration between family members and mental health care work-ers. The goal was to uncover actions that pro-mote collaboration and help build alliances between families and psychiatric workers. Results showed that health professionals view the family as a therapeutic resource. Despite this view, family members were rarely included in patient treatment. The reasons is: the struc-tures have a theoretical orientation of collabo-ration with the family but, for nurses not are organized a few meeting spaces with family members. Services should create moments, such as multi-family groups or groups of infor-mation, managed by nurses and not only by doctors. These occasions it might facilitate the knowledge between professionals and family members