Severe mental diseases

La Marató in 2008 focused on severe mental diseases, and especially on schizophrenia, severe depression and bipolar disorder, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), together with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism and borderline personality disorder (BPD).

The powerful social-awareness activity that La Marató 2008 presented contributed to greater knowledge and integration of people with mental illnesses, while making it possible to promote biomedical research that would increase knowledge about these diseases and find new drugs and therapies.

Mental disorders are alterations in the way in which people think, feel and behave, and they are conditioned by each person's genetic predisposition, environment and lifestyle. Currently, they are one of the three main causes of absence from work and they represent a heavy social and financial burden for patients and their families. In addition, they are stigmatised socially.