Social Psychiatry | Tampere universities

Among the fields of science, Social Psychiatry is situated between medicine and social sciences and it takes a multidisciplinary approach to mental health issues.

Social Psychiatry studies the demographic, social and cultural dimensions of mental health and mental health disorders. The main topics of research in our group are:

Epidemiology of mental disorders
Societal dimensions of mental health, including factors related to work capacity and social exclusion
Research on psychiatric service systems
The impact of socio-economic factors on mental health, access to services and related mortality
Social and cultural meanings of mental health and mental health disorders

Social Psychiatry Group

The Social Psychiatry Group is the only academic research and teaching unit of its kind in Finland. The group contributes to the societal debate and development work on mental health as an expert through position papers, various working groups, and working with stakeholders.

Research projects of the Social Psychiatry Group:

RETIRE - Pathways to Retirement, which uses Finnish register and service system data to investigate the determinants of psychiatric disability retirement. RETIRE - Pathways to Retirement (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31807792/)
MERTTU 2 - a registry-based research project on the course of mental health disorders and their link to social inclusion / TRIAD data
The Refinement and Cephos-link study on the impact of service system design and resourcing on mental health
Health 2000 and Health 2011 Surveys on mental health disorders and their risk factors in the population
Youth Mental Health Cohort Study
BWP project on the coordination of the service system and its effectiveness is being planned
Identifying mental health disorders and work capacity of the long-term unemployed (PhD project)

Research projects that may involve thesis writers:

Ask by e-mail from the Social Psychiatry Group members.

Scientific articles (publication data) and expert information:

Scientific articles (publication data) and expert data can be found on Tampere University’s and Pirkanmaa Hospital Disctrict’s (PSHP) public research portal (https://researchportal.tuni.fi) on the individual pages of each member of the Social Psychiatry Group:

Sami Pirkola: https://researchportal.tuni.fi/fi/persons/sami-pirkola
Sari Fröjd: https://researchportal.tuni.fi/fi/persons/sari-fr%C3%B6jd
Kimmo Suokas: https://researchportal.tuni.fi/fi/persons/kimmo-suokas

On this topic elsewhere:

Mental health services and the social and health system reform: https://www.duodecimlehti.fi/duo15737
Mental health disorders: https://www.laakarilehti.fi/ajassa/paakirjoitukset-tiede/yleistyvatko-mielenterveyshairiot-vaiko-vain-niiden-aiheuttama-haitta/
Psychiatrist Kimmo Suokas, who is also a researcher of social psychiatry at Tampere University, received an award from the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) for his study on the association of income with the incidence of first-time psychiatric hospital admissions in Finland in 1996–2014: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2757024

Degree education

The Social Psychiatry Group teaches public health students at Bachelor’s, Master’s, and doctoral levels, and contributes to the teaching of medical students in several courses. The topics we teach range from mental health, the prevention of disorders, occurrence and treatment of disorders in the service system, issues related to self-determination and stigma in psychiatry, and psychosocial functional capacity and its assessment. We also teach about global issues related to mental health.

Doctoral training

The mental health and social psychiatry doctoral training seminar is a regular meeting place for doctoral students in social psychiatry and other potentially interested doctoral researchers that provides training, supervision and support in the doctoral research process and provides networking and peer support led by supervisors.

The Psychiatry and Mental Health continuing education module is a continuing education seminar specifically on mental health and mental health services, which takes the form of a training module with varying content. The module has covered topics such as mental health and mental disorders, the importance of mental health and the prevalence of mental disorders, the mental health service system, and the social and societal dimensions of mental health. The Social Psychiatry Group is responsible for the implementation of the module, in cooperation with representatives from other disciplines that change each year and the Finnish Social Psychiatric Association (SSPY ry). The aim is to provide a multidisciplinary perspective on the topics under discussion.

Finnish Social Psychiatric Association, SSPY ry

The Finnish Social Psychiatric Association (SSPY) is a registered association established to promote the status of psychiatric patients and care, and to support research on mental health disorders and the service system. It does this by networking, organising training and discussion events where possible, and publishing articles and position papers on social psychiatry.

SSPY is a member of the World Association of Social Psychiatry WASP. SSPY maintains international cooperation through networking at the biennial WASP World Congress. Sami Pirkola, President of SSPY, is also member of the editorial board of WASP’s scientific publication World Social Psychiatry. SSPY also awards grants for its young members to attend the congress.

Both individuals and associations can join the Finnish Social Psychiatric Association. The annual membership fee for individuals is €20 and €50 for associations. For the membership fee and payment reference, please contact Treasurer Tino Karolaakso.

You can find the association on Facebook here.