Effects Of Mental Health

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Mental health refers to a range of health disorders that includes depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, addictive behaviors, eating disorders and phobias. All these disorders affect one 's ability to think, alter behavior and mood. Many people have some features of emotional health disorders but function in life without problems. It is only when the signs and symptoms start to affect behvior and ability to function, then a diagnosis of a mental health disorder is made. Many people do not think of mental illness as anything serious or an urgent problem. However, mential illness can serious affect the quality of life and can lead to severe disability and even death. The number of people affected by mental illness are staggering. It is estimated …show more content…

The reason is that in many parts of the world, mental illness is not even recognized as an illness and it is even a taboo to talk about it. In fact many Orientals and Asian do not even consider the fact that they they have mental illness for fear of being labeled “CRAZY.” Current statistics indicate that nearly 450 million people suffer from mental health disorders and they are located in every country. More disheartening is that in more than 2/5th of countries, there are no formal mental health policies and nearly 1/3rd have no mental health program. Nearly ¼ of these countries have no mental health legislation to protect this population. These numbers become even more frightening when one looks at the care that these people receive. At the moment more than 1/3rd of countries spend less than 1% of their total health budget on …show more content…

The success of these programs have been proven in clincial tirals. The programs include assisted outpatient treatment, cognitive behavior social skills training, substance abuse deterrence, life goals, collaborative care, therapeutic community support , improving relationships, psychoeducation programs for families and psychiatric rehabilitation. The problem is not the availability but access. Most of these programs are booked solid and there is long waiting time for patients to enter these therapies- plus they are not cheap. The other problem with these programs is that it is still too early to determine if they are effective in the mass population with the disease- remember clinical trials are done in a controlled environment when the individual is stable; in real life, there are people with varying cogntive and behavior problems and compliance with any treatment is not

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