Child and adolescent psychiatry in Croatia started in 1953 with the establishment of a small clinic in Zagreb. Since then, different services for prevention and treatment of psychiatric disorders of children and adolescents have been developed throughout Croatia, mostly in the big cities within tertiary and secondary health care facilities.
With the disintegration of the former Yugoslav Federation, the Yugoslav Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (formed in 1986) ceased to exist in 1990. In 1991 the Croatian Society for Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CSICAP) was formed in Zagreb. The members include child and adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, speech therapists, special educators, specialists in school medicine, pediatricians, social workers and other professions in mental health care, promotion, prevention and protection of children and adolescents.
At that time child and adolescent psychiatry was not recognized as a medical specialization. The Croatian Society for Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has worked with government policy makers to develop child and adolescent psychiatry as a separate discipline. In 1994, child and adolescent psychiatry was recognized as a subspecialty. The two-year training after the general psychiatry training included clinical practice and post-graduate education. Since 2011 child and adolescent psychiatry became a separate specialization. The duration of the child and adolescent psychiatry training is now five years.
Croatia needs to increase the number of child and adolescent psychiatrists, but also other mental health professionals, especially clinical psychologists, child psychologists, social workers and educational trainers working in the field.
The aim of the Society is to provide continuous education and a high qualification in training for child and adolescent psychiatry professionals, to increase public awareness on children’s rights and child mental health and disorders, to work with policy makers to develop and increase the child and adolescent psychiatry services across the country.
The Society organizes educational conferences, an annual meeting titled ‘Maja Beck Dvorzak Days’ – in honor of the first Croatian professor of child and adolescent psychiatry – and congresses, although on irregular basis It has published several textbooks on child and adolescent psychiatry and other publications. The CSICAP members presented their work at numerous congresses and conferences across Europe and elsewhere.
The Society is very active in promoting mental health issues and in the improvement of the conditions for and efficiency of child and adolescent psychiatric professionals and services. CSICAP facilitates cooperation between child and adolescent psychiatry and other services (such as maternity and child health care, social service, school and education system, juvenile delinquency correction centers as well as adult psychiatry).

 

Read the summary of the 2nd Croatian Congress on Children and Adolescent Mental Health, Zagreb, May 18-19th 2018. 

 

Croatia had a representative at the first regional meeting for the Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions in Western Balkans, read the report.

 

 

Dr Vlatka Boricevic Maršanic, president

 

Croatian Society for Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Address: Psychiatric Hospital for Children and Adolescents, Ulica I. Kukuljevica 11, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia.
Phone:  +38514862 501.
E-mail: vlatka.boricevic.marsanic@djecja-psihijatrija.hr, ivasmigovec@gmail.com

 

Updated: 6 April 2017.