This is the first of a series of volumes addressing an issue which is emerging as a priority in the mental health field: the timely and proper recognition of physical health problems in people with severe mental disorders.

It is now well documented by research that people with severe mental disorders have a higher prevalence of several physical diseases and a higher mortality from natural causes than the general population. They seem not to have benefited from the recent favourable trends concerning mortality due to some physical diseases, in particular cardiovascular illness. Their access to physical healthcare is reduced and the quality of the physical care they receive is worse as compared with the general population. If we are really concerned about the quality of life of people with mental disorders and wish to protect their civil rights, we cannot ignore the fact that physical health is a crucial dimension of their quality of life, and that access to a physical healthcare of the same quality as that available to the rest of the population is one of their basic rights as human beings and as citizens.

The initial trigger for the preparation of this series of books has been a personal communication to one of us from a physician working with the Médecins sans Frontières in a Central Asian republic.