2023-06-14 22:00:31
- According to the WHO, one in eight people on the planet suffers from a mental disorder.
- People with these types of problems take years to seek professional help.
- Poverty, social inequalities and contexts of violence that are experienced in the country cause some of the stigmas in mental health.
Stigmas around mental health are a reality and are also a barrier to receiving care. Although the number of people affected is increasing, only a minority seek professional help. It is a serious problem that in the end maintains a relationship with the physical part and does not allow us to achieve comprehensive well-being.
With this in mind, the World Health Organization (WHO) states that one in eight people on the planet suffers from a mental disorder. Therefore it could become the next pandemic.
Based on the above, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) led the Third Permanent Seminar on Community Social Emergency of the National School of Social Work.
One of the speakers was the director of the Faculty of Psychology, Maria Elena Medina-Mora Icazastated that there is a gap in care for patients with mental health problems compared to that received by people with other conditions.
Main stigmas in mental health
He added that those with a mental disorder still do not have their human rights protected, so it is necessary to review the care model and guarantee their reintegration into the community.
According to a study prepared by the global health group and published in the specialized magazine The Lancet of Psychiatryit was analyzed how the social determinants are associated with sustainable development.
It was confirmed that of the 17 goals for sustainable development, 13 were related to the mental health of the population and had to do with factors such as economic problems, poverty, inequality, gender equality, in addition to insecurity and trauma associated with violence. .
“There is an important role for health, but also another relevant role for security for a life free of violence, because we know that it is one of the essential risk factors for the disease; our obligation is to build stable places so that all people are at no risk of getting sick, and those who are can live in an environment of trust”.
He also said that there is a direct relationship between poverty and mental illness, since mental health is related to its biological, demographic or constitutional characteristics and also to life factors formed by social and community networks, and influenced by conditions. life, work and broad socioeconomic, cultural and environmental factors.
Medina-Mora Icaza explained that after a review of the world surveys on mental health, prepared in recent years by the World Health Organization (WHO), it was observed, among other situations, how in our country socioeconomic disadvantages are associated with increased risk of drug abuse, through exposure to violence and unsafe environments.
“What we found in Mexico -when we analyzed the exposure to violence in the life cycle- is that witnesses to domestic violence occurred mainly among children between the ages of 5 and 10. Parental beatings occurred before the age of 17; rape in the first two decades of life; sexual assault from the age of 5 with new cases up to the age of 25”.
With these data, he added, it is confirmed that, for children and adolescents, at this stage of life the risk of getting sick increases; Half of the people acquired a condition during childhood, adolescence or early youth, so prevention work becomes important in these periods.
A fundamental element to attend to the different problems around mental health has to do with specialized training, in which the actors who can intervene must be incorporated, in order to improve the mechanisms of attention, the environments in life of people, health promotion and disease prevention.
Similarly, it is essential to work on literacy and awareness of the population, in order to reduce the high social stigmatization that prevails against mental illness, to people whose vocation is to care for it, even towards institutions created to grant specialized care.
The signaling causes those who begin to suffer from a disorder to resist seeking assistance. This does not encourage them to seek help, since from the beginning of the disease to the time of treatment it can take from 14 to 35 years, depending on the condition.
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