Health is essential for the development of the country. World Health Organization explains health as “a state of physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.
- Mental health has an impact on
- Educational outcome
- Productivity at business
- Development of Concrete personal associations
- Crime valuation
- Alcohol & drug violation
Mental Health is Important
More than 450 million citizens of various countries experience mental disorders. According to WHO, by 2020, depression will constitute the second most significant disease burden worldwide (Murray & Lopez, 1996). The global responsibility of mental health will be well past the treatment capacities of developed and developing countries. The social and financial costs connected with the growing burden of mental ill-health focused on the possibilities for promoting mental health and preventing and treating mental illness. Thus, mental health is associated with behaviour and seen as necessary to physical health and state of life.
Physical health and mental health are intimately associated, and it is established beyond doubt that grief leads to heart and vascular diseases.
Mental disorders also affect a person health behaviour like eating sensibly, regular exercise, adequate sleep, engaging in safe sexual practices, alcohol and tobacco use, adhering to medical therapies, thus increasing the risk of physical illness.
- Mental ill-health also leads to social problems like lay-off, broken families, insufficiency, drug abuse and related crime.
- Poor mental health represents a significant role in reduced immune functioning.
- Medically ill patients with despair have a worse outcome than those without.
- Chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, cancer increase the risk of depression.
Implementation of Programmes
Stigma is linked with mental illness, and patients are segregated against in society in all aspects like education, employment, marriage etc., which leads to delay in seeking medical advice. With a lack of definitive signs and symptoms, vagueness in mental health and illness concepts has resulted in diagnostic confusion.
- People believe that mental illnesses happen in those who are mentally weak or due to spirits.
- Many people think that mental illness is irreversible that advance to therapeutic nihilism.
- Many people understand that preventive measures are unlikely to achieve.
- Many people think that drugs used to manage mental illness may cause various side effects and leads to addiction. They believe that these drugs induce sleeping.
Data collected by WHO showed there is a large gap between the burden and resources. It is caused by mental health problems and the resources obtainable in countries to check and treat them. In most sections of the world, the treatment of mental illness was alienated from the foundation of medicine and health care until lately. Psychiatric patients and families fail to serve as pressure groups. They are unwilling to come together because of harsh social stigma and a shortage of knowledge about their rights.
Cause of Mental Illness
Neurotransmitters: Mental illnesses have been linked to an abnormal balance of particular chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters stimulate nerve cells in the brain to interact with each other. If these elements are out of balance or are not running correctly, messages may not make it through the brain accurately, driving to symptoms of mental illness.
Genetics (heredity): Many mental illnesses spread in families. It implies that people who own a family member with a psychic disease are more prone to grow a mental illness. Susceptibility is carried on in families through genes. Specialists believe many mental illnesses are connected to abnormalities in many genes. That is why a person inherits an exposure to a mental illness and doesn’t certainly develop the disease. Mental illness itself happens from the interaction of varied genes and other factors – like stress, abuse, or a traumatic event — which can influence or trigger a condition in a person who has an inherited sensitivity to it.
Infections: Some infections have been linked to brain damage. Some are related to the development of mental illness or the worsening of its symptoms. For example, a condition is known as paediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder (PANDA) associated with the Streptococcus bacteria has been linked to the development of obsessive-compulsive disorder and other mental illnesses in children.
Brain defects or injury: Defects in or damage to some regions of the brain has also been associated with some mental illnesses
National mental health policies should not be individually concerned with mental disorders but should also recognize and address the broader issues which promote mental health. It includes mainstreaming mental health promotion into policies and programmers in government and business sectors, including education, labour, justice, transport, environment, housing, welfare, and the health sector.
WHO on Mental Health
WHO supports governments to strengthen and support mental health. WHO has evaluated the evidence for promoting mental health and is working with governments to disseminate this information and integrate effective strategies into policies and plans.
- Early childhood interventions
- Support to children
- Socio-economic empowerment of women
- Social support for elderly populations
- Programmes targeted at vulnerable groups, including migrants minorities, indigenous people, and people affected by conflicts or disasters
- Mental health promotional activities in schools
- Mental health interventions at work
- Housing policies
- Violence prevention programmes
- Community development programmes