Multilingualism and international mental health research–The barriers for non-native speakers of English

In 2023, an international mental health congress was held in Italy. Although this meeting was attended by 1,389 participants from all over the world, there was only an estimated 54 (3.8%) Italian participants. This could be considered to be very low attendance of Italian scientists and clinicians for an event of this size taking place in their country of residence. We believe that the language barrier is a principal reason for such a low attendance. According to the English Proficiency Index developed by Education First [1], Italy ranks 35th out of 112 countries surveyed in terms of English proficiency: other European countries rank similarly low in this list (Spain is 35th, France is 43rd); whilst other large countries outside of Europe also place low in this ranking (Brazil 70th, Indonesia 79th, China 82nd, Japan 87th,) as do most low-income countries.