International Journal of Family Medicine

First, about 14% of the global burden of disease has been attributed to neuropsychiatric disorders, mostly due to the chronically disabling nature of depression and other common mental disorders, alcohol-use and substance-use disorders, and psychoses (World Health Organisation, 2008; Prince et al., 2007).

In terms of disability-adjusted life years, depression ranks number one among noncommunicable diseases and is projected to become the most important overall contributor to global disease burden by 2030 (Mathers and Loncar, 2006). Five of the ten leading causes of disability worldwide in 1990 (measured in years of life lived with a disability) are psychiatric conditions: unipolar depression, alcohol use, bipolar affective disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive compulsive disorder (Jenkins, 1997).

Second, the burden of mental disorders is likely to be underestimated because of inadequate appreciation of the connectedness between mental illness and other health conditions. Because these interactions are protean, there can be no health without mental health (Prince et al., 2007). Mental health disorders play an important role in the risk for and development of somatic complaints and diseases.

Third, the European Study of the Epidemiology of Mental Disorders (ESEMeD) revealed that most persons with mental disorders sought help in consulting their general practitioner or combined it with consulting a psychiatrist (Alonso et al., 2004a; Alonso et al., 2004b; Codony et al., 2009).

Therefore the care for patients with mental health problems is very important. The International Journal of Family Medicine calls for papers for special issue dedicated to mental health problems in family medicine. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Help seeking behavior of patients
Mental health and family medicine
Mental health services in primary care
Treatment of psychiatric diseases
Mental health problems for special patients groups
Education and training for mental health
Results of trials concerning treatment and healthcare delivery models
New and innovative collaborative systems between primary and secondary care are of special interest

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijfm/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: