About 16.4% of people in Bulgaria, roughly one in six, live with a mental disorder, according to the Ministry of Health. The ministry published the figures on its website for World Mental Health Day, 10 October.

In Bulgaria, mental disorders are the second most common cause of years lived with disability. Worldwide, more than 1 billion people have such a disorder, and depression and anxiety are the most common.

Bulgaria marks the day on 10 October every year. This year the World Health Organization (WHO) campaign has the slogan "The voice of lived experience: real voices, real change".

The campaign focuses on people who have gone through mental health problems themselves. The WHO wants their knowledge to be recognised as a form of expertise, and calls on countries to involve them fully in making policy and in planning and providing services. The organisation says they should be equal partners from the start, when policies and services are designed, carried out and assessed.

The second big theme is deinstitutionalisation: the move from long-term care in psychiatric institutions to services built around the person. The WHO wants people affected to have more say in decisions about their own lives. It says the change needs affordable, good-quality services and support in the community, so that people can live with dignity, free to choose and in touch with their family and close ones.

Only 9% of countries have completed the move fully, while 53%, more than half, are still at the start. In psychiatric hospitals, 49% of recorded admissions are involuntary, and 23% of stays last more than a year.

The ministry also cited the WHO study "Mental Health Atlas 2024". Of the countries that replied, 37% include people with lived experience in training primary care health workers. In 45% of countries, health authorities work with such people and with advocacy groups for families and carers. They do so when they plan, provide or monitor services, from promoting mental health and prevention to treatment and rehabilitation.

In 59% of countries, mental health laws were drafted after consulting people with lived experience. Among countries with a mental health policy or plan, 80% held such consultations while drawing it up.

The ministry says the atlas data show that involving people with lived experience is still not standard practice.

The ministry said it will keep working on prevention and early support, on better access to good-quality health services, on protecting human rights and on stronger co-operation between different sectors.

The ministry says the focus remains on the person, their health, dignity and rights, and their ability to take part in the decisions that affect them.