On December 8 to 10, 2003, 740 mental-health care workers from the Arabian Gulf, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, USA, Canada, and Nigeria, met at J.W. Marriott Hotel, Kuwait, under the theme: Mental health care practices in the Gulf, and presented 113 scientific papers in plenary sessions, ordinary sessions and workshops. The moving force behind the conference was Dr. Adnan A. Al-Edan, Director of Psychological Medicine Hospital, Kuwait, and president of the organizing committee. To our deepest regret, Dr. Adnan, as we fondly call him, suddenly voluntarily retired from government service about three months after the conference. He was like a meteor, a star whose dazzling lights suddenly dashed across the skies of our hospital and mental health care service in Kuwait. Using his tremendous influence in the Kuwaiti corridors of power, he convinced the Minister of Health, Dr. Mohammed Al-Jarallah, to provide us the financial and administrative backing of Kuwait's Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Finance, and the Council of Health Ministers of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.


Objectives of the Conference

This conference was regarded as the First International Gulf Conference on Mental Health, because it was the first to be sponsored by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the field of mental health.

In the spirit of cooperation, friendship and progress that is enshrined in the work of the GCC, we sought to achieve the following objectives at the conference:

The general aim was:

To provide a formal forum whereby professionals in mental health in the Region, can share experiences in the problems facing delivery of services, with a view to improving the quality of care, research capability, medical education, mental health administration, and the development of specialized programs.

The specific objectives were:

• to highlight the pattern of mental disorders in the Region, from hospital and community based data;
  
• to share experience in the techniques for instituting national mental health registers, which will foster regular auditing of service delivery, epidemiological surveillance of mental disorders, and provide a fund of data for longitudinal psychiatric research;
  
• to examine how the techniques of community psychiatry, rehabilitation and psychotherapy can be (are being) applied, taking into consideration the socio-cultural context. How are countries in the Region developing other specialized programs, such as psycho-geriatrics, child and adolescent psychiatry, liaison-consultation psychiatry and drug addiction?
  
• to examine guidelines for psychoactive substance usage, and in particular, how to encourage governments in the Region to make the novel psychotropic drugs much more widely available for patients for whom these treatments are indicated;
  
• to share experience in the state of development of mental health administration, manpower development, medical education programs for medical and paramedical staff; and in particular, the state of development of disciplines, such as, psychiatric nursing, clinical psychology, social work and occupational therapy. For instance, are occupational therapy activities recognized and administered within the mental health-care delivery system?;
  
• to highlight on-going research in mental health in the Region, and articulate the means whereby governments can be encouraged to increase the capabilities of hospitals for biological and epidemiological research;
  
• to lay the foundation for instituting Regional professional associations, such as for psychiatrists, and consider how the association can be registered with the World Psychiatric Association.
  
  

To meet the above objectives, the conference's program was structured in such a way as to represent virtually all the fields of mental health, including:

• clinical psychiatry
  
• drug addiction
  
• forensic psychiatry
  
• child/adolescent psychiatry
  
• geriatric psychiatry
  
• biological psychiatry
  
• rehabilitation/psychotherapy
  
• pharmacy
  
• psychiatric nursing
  
• psychology
  
• social work
  
• administrative psychiatry
  
• occupational therapy
  
  

A particular feature was the provision of a parallel session in a separate hall for members who preferred to present in Arabic. We therefore had an integrative approach that gave opportunity for all interested workers to benefit from the conference.

The wide variety of papers in this publication is an indication of how far we met the scientific aspects of the stated objectives. A measure of far we met the human aspects of the objectives is the fact that, despite the fact that the sessions ran from 8:30am to 8:00pm daily (with a break from 2:00 to 4:00pm), each of the three Halls had good attendance at any one time. This is an indication that the medical community in Kuwait has a strong desire for mental health care knowledge and continuing medical education. In this regard, we noted with pleasure, the presence of a fairly large contingent from the Islamic Republic of Iran. The international collaborative links that have been forged between mental health care experts in Kuwait and Iran should augur well for the future of mental health care development in the Gulf.


The Benefits of the Conference

We believe that the conference has sown the seeds for the full achievement of our lofty objectives earlier highlighted. We hope that the momentum generated by the conference will continue to inspire mental health workers, administrators and policy makers, leading to a flowering of mental health work in the Region.

The specific benefits were:

• We promoted awareness of mental health work in Kuwait. We hope that the high profile nature of the conference will help to lessen the stigma of mental illness in the community.
  
• International guests visited our facilities, including the new wing of the hospital, and they were inspired by our facilities and programs, with the hope that they can learn from our model to improve their work in other GCC countries.
  
• Mental health care experts from the GCC met and discussed ways of helping to formulate policies to improve mental health care delivery in the Region.
  
• We have established linkages with centers abroad for further specific training of our staff, improvement of our programs, service delivery and collaborative research.
  
  

In an appropriate forum, Dr. Adnan had acknowledged the contribution of the many staff and sponsors who made the conference a success. We thank the International Journal of Mental Health & Addiction (formerly known as eCOMMUNITY) for providing us this forum by which the general public can share in the wealth of knowledge about mental health care in the Gulf region that we were opportuned to have at the conference.


Jude U Ohaeri, MD, FRCPsych(UK)
Chairman of the Scientific Committee and Guest Editor for the proceedings