The recent exposure of the plight of inmates living in poor conditions at the state asylum on the Greek island of Leros has caused public and professional outrage. If Greece is to avoid mistakes made by other countries, the plans for rehabilitating the patients and closing the hospital should from the outset include identification of the precise needs of patients for support and care. The survey of the patients' characteristics and needs for care found that most patients had no outside friends or relatives, and most were unable to perform basic daily skills. They shared many basic characteristics, however, with a large sample of the long-stay population in the UK, and 25% were thought to be able to live independently.

The detection of psychiatric disorder by primary care physicians in Greece was investigated using four non-psychiatric physicians. The General Health Questionnaire indicated a high probable prevalence of psychiatric disorder (77.8%), but the physicians rated only 9.3% of the sample as cases. Eighty eight per cent of the probable cases were undetected by the doctors. The doctors' reporting of cases was not affected by the demographic characteristics of the sample and only weakly affected by the patients' total GHQ score. The high probable prevalence and low detection rate is a cause for concern and requires further investigation.