Mental illness is a health condition involving changes in emotion, thinking or behavior and it is linked with distress or problems functioning in social, work or family activities. It affects family and the community at large. The consequence gets worse as many of the mental illness like bipolar and schizophrenia start at a young age. This is the age that one under goes the more productive labor force and can play a key role in providing great contribution in the social and economic growth of the community and entire nation.
The prevalence and status of mental illness in Ethiopia is similar to the global figures. Researchers have asserted that one in five people suffer from mental illness at least at a point in their life. That is 20 percent of the nation’s population.
This figure thus implies that the problem knocks the roof of each family. Mental illness is a disease that affects the very organ that controls one’s emotion, cognitions and behaviors. It can occur at any ages in both sexes and at every community level, St. Amanuel Mental Specialized Hospital document stated.
St. Amanuel Mental Specialized Hospital (StAMSH) staff and Ethiopian Psychiatric Association (EPA) have celebrated the World Mental Health Day recently under the theme “Focus on Suicide Prevention.”
At the occasion, Edao Fejo, CEO at StAMSH said “suicide is one of the worst outcomes of mental disorder that affect our community. Currently, people are more aware of the importance of mental health comparing to the previous time but the expected result is not achieved. Due to this reason mental illness has become more complicated problem and difficult to handle.”
Dr. Edao noted that researches show that suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15-29 in the world. As a result, people close to 800,000 die because of this plague every year.
He noted that what makes the matter worse, 78 percent of the world’s suicides are committed in middle and low-income countries. This implies that it is likely to exert significant negative impacts on national and global development by harming the productive power of the youth.
On his part Dr. Dawit Assefa, President at EPA said that due to lack of awareness some people relate mental illness with evil spirit or sin. That’s why a person who has a mental illness is stigmatized in the community.
“So to avoid the misconception of mental illness, we have to work together with the community to create awareness. We have to bear out that mental health and sinning are not linked,” said Dr. Dawit.
He expressed that prevention of mental illness needs the involvement of all stakeholders and the media have a vital role to create awareness among the community. In addition, we need to push the government to act on developing policy and strategy at the national level that comes up with multilateral response.
Professor Atalay Alem, Mental health lecturer and researcher at Addis Ababa University told The Ethiopian Herald that there are some challenges that hinder prevention of mental illness such as lack of skilled human power, health inputs; unaffordable price of medicine and the country’s economic condition. Regarding the root cause of mental illness, vulnerability to drug abuse and over usage of alcohol take the preliminary position. So the Ethiopian government should work hand in glove with stakeholders to prevent mental illness.
On the occasion, Dr. Atalay has presented his research; and his research stated that at the global level, more than 450 million people suffer from mental illness. Out of these, 86 percent of them are from countries with low and middle income.
Studies conducted on the pastoralists, farmers, towns’ residents, youths and others show that in Ethiopia an average of 27 million people suffer from mental illness that need from mild to extreme help or counseling, he noted.
He stated that the burden of mental health is especially heavy for parents of chronically ill young people. Greater attention needs to be given to the prevention of the plague and promotion of mental healthcare system aiming.
The Ethiopian Herald October 22, 2019
BY ESSEYE MENGISTE
