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Only five percent people in 100 get adequate treatment for mental health disorders annually, said Dr Rajesh Sagar, Professor of Psychiatry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on the day of World Mental Health Day.
Dr Sagar said, the research was done with the collaboration of World Health Organisation (WHO), which states that 95 percent of people remain deprived of treatment due to stigma associated with it. Some may hesitate to open about the problem while others do not complete the course of medication.
The study, which was conducted across 11 centre in the country, involved 3,000 people from each city. The objective of the study was to find out the types of mental disorders people have been facing. The names of the cities are Chandigarh, Pune, Lucknow, Delhi, Tirupati, Bangalore, Pondicherry, Imphal, Ranchi, Dibrugarh and Bhavnagar.
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According to the study, 95 percent people did not take proper medication so their disorder was not cured. “The reason for not taking proper medicines was that these people did not think mental problem as illness, so they always tried to ignore it and adopt other methods like yoga or meditation,” said Dr Rajesh. He also emphasised that mental disorders require full treatment as any other disease like malaria or diabetes required.
Dr Sagar said, there are two types of mental disorders viz common mental disorder and severe mental disorder. Common disorders involve change in thinking (like negative thoughts, behaviour altercation and sad or irritable feelings. On the other hand, severe mental disorders include bipolar disorder, Schizophrenia among others.
To address the problem, Dr Sagar said, employee assisted programs (ASP) training of managers to identify mental health needs, periodic mental check-ups and self-help strategies by all has also been emphasized to not only deal with personal or workplace stress but to also strike work-life balance in the long run.
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