Mental health is an overlooked aspect of health in general
and even more so on the global scale. I watched a Ted Talk that was given by
Vikram Patel who brought forth many interesting statistics about mental illness
on the global forefront. The resources that are available to treat mental
illness are not available in other countries and the need to treat mental
illness is not there.
In the Ted
Talk, Vikram Patel stated, "In developed countries, roughly 50 percent of
people don't receive appropriate care for mental disorders but that, in
developing countries, the treatment gap rockets sky-high to 90
percent". He gave another statistic
to follow stating, "If you translate the percentage of psychiatrists in
the population in the United Kingdom to India, you'd expect to see about
150,000 of them. But in the world's second most populous country, the actual
number of psychiatrists is closer to 3,000. The situation is as dire in other
countries, too. In Zimbabwe, a country of nearly 3 million, there are only about
a dozen psychiatrists, almost all of them practicing in the same
city". This really highlights the
issue of the shortage of mental illness care in not only developing countries,
but also in developed countries.
Some other
interesting facts that I received from the video are…..
- · Suicide is one of the three leading causes of death among those ages 15-44 in some countries and is also the second leading cause of death among those ages 10-24 in other countries.
- · Suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide in the past 45 years.
- · More than 90% of the people who commit suicide have a diagnosable mental disorder.
- · There are more than 450 million people around the world that suffer from a mental illness.
- · The World Health Organization predicts that by 2030, depression will be the second highest cause of disease burden in middle-income countries and the third highest in low-income countries.
- · According to TIME Magazine, in the United States alone, people that have a severe mental illness die on average 25 years earlier than the general population.
Clearly there are some alarming statistics and facts about
mental illness. So, what can we do about it? There have been some new
initiatives and programs that are in place to try to deal with this global
health issue. In Pakistan, health care providers, more specifically maternal
health workers, were taught to give cognitive therapy to mothers who were
depressed. This led to 73% of mothers being able to recover from their
depression. Another example was given in rural Uganda, where villagers were
taught to provide psychotherapy for depression. Over 90% of the people who
received psychotherapy were able to recover from it. Vikram Patel conducted his
own study where he found that by training counselors to treat depression and
anxiety, 70% of the patients were able to recover.
These
statistics are definitely something worth looking into. Many people know that
mental illness and treatment for mental illness doesn't get the attention that
it deserves, but the statistics clearly show this. By intervening and
implementing specific kinds of therapy for people who are mentally ill, we are
able to see drastic results.
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzm4gpAKrBk
This indeed is a huge problem Shelby and the global health systems are ill equipped to deal with this. Mental health is also a huge problem with us, in our home here at Purdue. Mental health of college students is a rapidly worsening scenario. We just (me and a doctoral student) submitted a IRB research proposal on this.
ReplyDeleteIn our era, medicine has advanced so much that it might be even misleading experts when it comes to diagnosis. Psychiatrists today are trained to label any unstable reaction or behavior in humans. In the past being sad for two or three days as a way of mourning a dear one was considered normal but today it has a label: depressed whether mild or severe I have no idea. Some experts think that mental is becoming an epidemic and pharmaceutical companies are making good business out the situation. There could be issues with over diagnoses and people being put on medications that could lead to others complications. I concur that mental health is also a disease that needed to be treated but are we truly looking at the root causes of mental problems? Or do we just want to admit that and capitalize on it to make money? In my opinion, first of all, we are going through mental disorders partly because of the modern world we find ourselves. The stress level is too high and chronic, life has become a battle field, no time to stop and stare. We have to be on constant move, ignoring the the natural beauty of nature. The result is STRESS and that leads to many of the labels and related medications Psychiatrists have in stock for us. Though there are other causes of mental health I believe if we can tackle stress we will go a long way to avoid some of those psychiatrists labels. Let me ask this simple question, how many animals leaving in their natural habitat are stressed?
ReplyDeleteWow Shelby, this really is a huge problem! I found the most surprising statistic that in the United States, people with mental illnesses die 25 years earlier than the average person. If anyone says that mental health is not related to physical health, they are wrong!
ReplyDeleteI think that part of the problem with people seeking treatment is stigma, again. They do not want to be labeled as “crazy.” Pretty recently I saw this post on Facebook:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/robynwilder/mental-health-at-work
People lie to their employers about why they are missing work because they are scared of how their employers might react.
I think another part of the problem is also a shortage of healthcare workers. Even in the United States, as you mentioned, we are not equipped to deal with even the 50% of patients who might seek treatment. One anecdotal experience is my boyfriend. He went to see his psychiatrist last night to get a refill on his medication. He saw her for only 2 minutes before she wrote him a prescription and sent him home. A medication is not a magic bullet and will not cure the disease. There needs to be more that accompanies the medication to make a difference. Clearly, our health care system does a poor job of this. Another similar example to this is smoking cessation. It has been proven that patients are over 50% more likely to quit when they receive behavioral therapy alongside pharmacologic therapy. How many people do you know that are simply using a nicotine lozenge or who believe that electronic cigarettes will help them quit?