Cape Mental Health’s #breaking the stigma with kindness, understanding
JULY marks Psychosocial Disability Awareness Month. At Cape Mental Health we will continue to advocate for the rights of persons with psychosocial disability to ensure that they live fully integrated lives with dignity and respect.
Our focus for the month of July is to raise awareness about what psychosocial disability entails, importantly #breakingthestigma on this umbrella term for a range of mental or psychiatric disorders.
Psychosocial disability is a broad term to classify a range of mental and psychiatric illnesses.
These may range from mild to severe and include mood disorders, anxiety disorder, depression and schizophrenia. People with a psychosocial disability often have difficulty interpreting reality, coping with some aspects of daily life or have trouble coping with difficult feelings.
This is a disability that affects millions of South Africans. About one in five South Africans will experience mental health issues at some point in their lives.
About 10% of South Africans will experience a psychosocial disability so serious that they may require medication or hospitalisation.
No one is immune from experiencing some form of mental health challenge. Facts and figures:
According to the World Health Organisation’s World Health Report 2001, at least one in four people will be affected by a mental or neurological disorder in their lives. Facts and figures:
The Mental Health Information Centre of SA estimates that one in five, about 20% of all South Africans suffer from a mental disorder severe enough to significantly affect their lives.
Twenty-five percent of all general practitioners’ patients are ill or seek help due to psychiatric, rather than general medical conditions.
Almost 20% of high school pupils think about fatally harming themselves.
About 450 million people around the world live with a mental health condition, placing mental disorders among the leading causes of ill-health and disability worldwide.
The overwhelming facts highlight how crucial mental health is within our society. It is reported that nearly two-thirds of persons with a known mental illness will never seek the necessary professional help, while 75% of those with mental illness have no access to mental health care in South Africa.
We believe stigma plays a major role in stopping these individuals from seeking treatment and remains one of the biggest barriers preventing mental health users from living integrated lives.
Stigma is prevalent within our communities and every structure, and is often fuelled by misconceptions and misplaced fear. Stigma is a complex concept which can be divided into three main categories:
Perceived public stigma: the general belief that people with mental illness are stigmatised by society.
Personal stigma: an individual’s belief about mental illness.
Self-stigma: an individual view of his own mental illness.
A multi-pronged approach is needed to address stigma and negative attitudes towards people living with mental illness. This includes changes in legislation, the public perception, attitudes and the media’s depiction of psychosocial disability.
The environment in which mental health users find themselves is often complicated by the existing challenges in the mental health sector.
Community-based mental health care service gaps are huge, with scarce human resources and limited financial investment to address the problem.
Mental health interventions remain largely biomedical instead of biopsycho-social. The latter are more successful in addressing and providing the continuum of care from hospital to community and have a better prognosis for the recovery discourse.
It is the responsibility of provincial governments to address the major disparities in mental health. They should be held accountable to address these gaps in service provision and ensure that the National Mental Health Policy and Strategic Plan 20013-2020 is implemented to reverse the mediocre focus on mental health.
The Life Esidimeni tragedy should propel South Africa to actions that will ensure that persons living with mental health needs have dignity, equality, access to quality health care and other rights.
Access to biopsycho-social community-based mental health interventions keep people well and mostly out of hospital. Recurrent hospitalisations and relapses due to inadequate care results in long periods of sustained ill-health, which reinforces stigma.
Stigma associated with psychosocial disability should be addressed by doing the following:
Acknowledge that psychosocial disabilities are common and can affect anyone at any stage – we all have a responsibility to change the conversation, to be more accepting and supportive.
Educate society about psychosocial disability – educate our children and communities.
Change the language and terminology to discard the labels.
Address apathy towards the treatment of psychosocial disability.
Address the inadequate treatment and resources, and ensure that people with psychosocial disability have access to adequate community-based health care.
Cape Mental Health urges everyone to become advocates for mental health by #breakingthestigma. Stigma creates barriers, and barriers create isolation and exclusion.
Educate yourself to understand psychosocial disabilities and how you can help. You can help those living with a mental disorder through support, sharing your concern and reaching out for professional help.
Oktober is PR and communications manager at Cape Mental Health.