WHO says regional unrest poses psychological threat to individuals, community

AMMAN — Promoting mental health awareness will help eliminate the social stigma often associated with mental diseases, officials said on Monday.

Speaking at a World Health Organisation (WHO) event marking World Mental Health Day, WHO Representative to Jordan Maria Cristina Profili highlighted the interconnectedness between physical and mental health, highlighting the importance of life quality and civic participation in boosting mental health.

The theme for this year’s World Mental Health Day, annually marked on October 10, is “Living with Schizophrenia”. 

“Improving mental health is important to everyone, as it enhances social cohesion and stability, engages people more productively in their relationships and vocations, and contributes to enhancing social capital and economic development,” Profili said. 

The WHO official noted that around 450 million individuals worldwide suffer from mental health problems, including around 21 million with schizophrenia, citing the region’s political unrest as a physical, psychological and social threat at the individual and collective levels.

Referring to WHO’s mental health gap action programme, which addresses priority mental health conditions through various interventions, including the integration of mental health into primary care, Profili said the WHO Mental Health Action Plan for 2013-2020 seeks to utilise existing resources to develop mental health.

“We have the tools to make a difference in mental health and we would like to take advantage of these existing resources to further advance action on mental health in Jordan,” she said at the event, which follows a 10-day awareness campaign under the theme “Living with mental illness”.

The September 15-25 campaign, conducted in cooperation with the Health Ministry and several local organisations, included lectures and group discussions to promote mental health awareness, in addition to the distribution of educational material to schools, universities and local communities across the country. Deputising for HRH Princess Muna, Health Minister Ali Hiasat said the national strategy for mental health, which was revised in 2011, aims to promote mental health services and facilities across the Kingdom, citing the mental health unit that was opened at Maan Public Hospital.

“The ministry seeks to create similar units in several hospitals across the Kingdom,” Hiasat said, adding that it offers incentives to resident doctors who decide to specialise in mental health.

“Undiagnosed mental health conditions are the reason for several social issues at the family and community levels,” he noted. 

The ministry, Hiasat said, has established three rehabilitation clinics that work on reintegrating mental health patients into society.

In a review of schizophrenia, Nayel Adwan, director of the National Centre for Mental Health, said the intense mental disorder affects patients’ cognitive abilities in a way that disables their ability to differentiate between reality and imagination.

He added a schizophrenia patient’s life expectancy rate is 10 to 25 years lower than average people. Over 50 per cent of patients are overweight and many are likely to commit suicide.

Adwan called for respecting patients’ rights as humans and ending the stigma commonly associated with mental illness.

According to WHO’s website, “schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder, characterised by profound disruptions in thinking, affecting language, perception, and the sense of self.” 

“It often includes psychotic experiences, such as hearing voices or delusions. It can impair functioning through the loss of an acquired capability to earn a livelihood, or the disruption of studies,” the organisation said.