Management and preventive measures of mental health problems
Mental Health Promotion and Prevention of Mental Illness
Preventive activities for people who already have a mental illness can help to reduce the negative impact of their condition and can reduce the risk of suicide. The response of the community to issues of mental illness can be very important in improving (or making worse) the quality of life experienced by those suffering from mental illness. Giving emphasize on the negative effects of stigma and discrimination, the abuse of mentally ill people, and what you can do to mobilize your community to try to solve these problems.
Raising awareness about mental health
One of the most important things that you can do to help people with mental illness is to increase awareness and understanding in the communities where you live and work. By raising awareness about mental health and illness, we are trying to achieve the following goals:
Mental health promotion and primary prevention: By mental health promotion we mean educating people about ways to improve their mental health. In primary prevention, the aim is to prevent a person from developing a mental illness in the first place. The strategies for improving mental health and avoiding mental illness are similar, so we will group them together.
Secondary prevention means detecting mental illness as quickly as possible so that the person can receive treatment before the illness progresses.
Tertiary prevention means trying to reduce some of the negative effects of a mental illness that has already developed.
Mental health promotion and primary prevention
There are four main areas of focus for improving mental health and reducing the risk of mental illness:
- promoting a happy, healthy childhood
- reducing the exposure to violence
- reducing the use of substances such as alcohol, khat and cannabis, and
- support in coping with life's problems.
- Prevention of intellectual disability is another important area
Promoting a happy, healthy childhood
A child who comes from a loving home is more likely to grow up into an adult who can trust other people, have good relationships and cope with life's .problems. Children who experience physical, emotional or sexual abuse have a much higher risk of developing a mental illness as an adult. Children can also suffer from the effects of bullying. Bullying is when other children say nasty things or are physically violent towards a child
Coping with life's problems
Sometimes we face difficulties in life and these can disturb us. We can describe these difficulties as stressful events. Even good things can be considered a stressful event. For example, getting married is a good and positive thing, but preparing for this celebration can put people under a lot of pressure so that it can be a stressful event.
Coping strategies
- Helpful coping strategies
- Spend time with family and friends
- Talk about your problems
- Speak to someone with a similar problem
- Some people find it helpful to pray
- Exercise
- Find a way to solve your problem
- Unhelpful coping strategies
- Drink alcohol heavily
- Chew khat
- Stay in bed all day
- Keep your problems to yourself
- Avoid dealing with your problems
- Get into fights
Secondary prevention: screening and early treatment
The earlier that a person with mental illness can get treatment, the better their recovery will be. Different types of mental illness can be detected in different ways. In your day-to-day work, you can screen people for mental illness. You can also teach the community about detecting mental illness, and encourage them to take the affected person to a health facility.
Suicide prevention
Around 3% of the adult population (1.2 million people in Ethiopia) has thought about killing themselves at some time. Suicide is a tragedy and has a very big effect on the family and community. Although it is not always possible to prevent a person from committing suicide, you can help to reduce the risk of it happening.
Ways to help to prevent suicide
- Know how to assess the risk of suicide.
- Help people who have attempted suicide.
- Help people with depression and psychosis to get early treatment so that their suffering is reduced.
- Help people with an alcohol, khat or cannabis problem to get treatment. It is important to ask about suicidal ideas, and also to screen for depression, as this increases the risk of suicide in this group.
- Improve people's coping strategies. Educating the community about "helpful coping strategies" may help to reduce the chance that they will turn to suicide if they experience a very stressful event.
Tertiary prevention: reducing the negative impact of mental illness
In people who have already developed mental illness, there are simple actions that you can take to help them recover more fully and more quickly, and to reduce some of the negative effects of mental illness.
Nutrition and physical health
People with mental illness may neglect their health. For example, a depressed person might lose interest in food and stop eating, while a person with psychosis might neglect their personal hygiene so that they catch more infections. The presence of mental illness may stop the person noticing symptoms of physical disease and looking for help. People with mental illnesses are also less likely to get adequate treatment for physical health problems. Due to stigma and discrimination, health workers may not offer a mentally ill person the same level of treatment they would give to others. For instance, they may not take their physical complaints seriously or they may not investigate them as thoroughly as they would if the patient was not mentally ill.
Additionally, some traditional remedies (e.g. beating out demons) are harmful and may affect the person's physical health. Practices such as chaining up disturbed people can lead to physical problems, e.g. sores and muscle wasting, so that they become more disabled. Also, people with mental illness are more likely to smoke cigarettes, chew khat and drink alcohol. These habits may negatively affect their physical health. The unwanted effects of medication can also affect physical health. Some medications can make the person put on a lot of weight and increase their risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Because of all these effects of mental illness on physical health, a person in Ethiopia with severe mental health problems is three times more likely to die young.
Here are a few things you can do to help:
- Encourage the family to care for the person with mental illness by giving them shelter, clothing and food, and helping them to care for their personal hygiene.
- Remember that people with mental illness are at higher risk of many physical illnesses. Don't ignore them if they complain of physical symptoms.
- Monitor their weight to detect undernutrition.
- Monitor carefully for other unwanted effects of medication.
- Explain about the negative effects of drinking alcohol, chewing khat and smoking cigarettes or cannabis.