Poverty, political instability cause of mental illness

'World Mental Health Day 2006' is being celebrated on October 10 with a pledge that efforts would be made to create more awareness among the people about psychiatric problems to create a healthy society.
The World Mental Health Day (WMHD) is an initiative of the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) and is co-sponsored by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This year the Day is being celebrated with the theme-Building Awareness - Reducing Risks: Mental Illness and Suicide.
The selection of this theme reflects the need to increase awareness of the importance of considering health as a whole-body concern. The WHO has stated that mental health is as important as physical health to the overall well-being of individuals, societies and countries. WMHD takes place on October 10 each year with the aim to raise awareness of mental health issues on a global scale.
Walks, seminars, scientific sessions, symposiums and special functions will be held across the country to mark the Day with a view to call attention for promoting enlightened public policy, implement effective preventive strategies to reduce the sufferings of those facing mental illness.
In Lahore, Fatima Jinnah Medical College, Pakistan Association for Mental Health, Pakistan Psychiatry Association, Mental Health Resource Center, Fountain House Lahore have planned various activities to mark the Day.
According to the WHO, world-wide, up to 20 percent of children and adolescents have an impairing mental illness while suicide is the third leading cause of death among adolescents.
Mental health professionals told Business Recorder that some 10 percent of country's population is suffering from either kind of psychology-related disorders and there are apprehensions that by the year 2020, depression would be rated as the second major cause of death after heart diseases.
They maintained that the concept of mental illness in Pakistan has not fully developed.
Ironically, general practitioners knowledge and skills are inadequate in managing mental illness as increasing level of violence coupled with economic problems and host of other factors, may be attributed as major cause for the rising incidence of mental disorders in the country, they said.