10 Percent of World's Population Suffers from Mental Disorder: WHO

Geneva: WHO has come up with shocking results of the world. Highlighting the need for larger investments and effort towards development of mental health care across the world, WHO said that 1 in 10 people in the world suffer from a mental disorder. It also pointed out to the economic crisis causing higher rates of depression and suicide.

According to Dr. Shekhar Saxena, Director of WHO's Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, "the resources devoted to mental health, financial as well as human resources, remain extremely small all over the world"

Saxena also pointed out that in general, "countries that are facing serious socio-economic challenges are at a higher risk of having mental health problems within their communities,"

He Said:

"The rate of depression and the rate of suicide actually do increase significantly for countries that are suffering from economic downturn. These are precious loss of life which a country should protect by maintaining the mental health care that is due to these people during these times of stress."

According to WHO's 2014 Mental Health Atlas, nearly half of the world's population lives in a country where there is less than one psychiatrist per 100,000 people, while in high-income countries the rate is one per 2,000.

"The prevalence of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorders and drug abuse vary significantly more between different societies and there are some cultural factors for that," Saxena added.

Through its Mental Health Atlas WHO has also layer down the Comprehensive mental health action plan 2013-2020 targets, and baseline values for 2013, some of which are as follows:

• 80% of countries will have developed or updated their policies or plans for mental health in line with international and regional human rights instruments by the year 2020.
  - Baseline: 45% of all WHO Member States


• 50% of countries will have developed or updated their law for mental health in line with international and regional human rights instruments by the year 2020.
  - Baseline: 34% of all WHO Member States


• Service coverage for severe mental disorders will have increased by 20% by the year 2020.
  - Baseline: Currently not computable from Atlas 2014 data


• 80% of countries will have at least two functioning national, multisectoral mental health promotion and prevention programmes by the year 2020.
  - Baseline: 41% of all WHO Member States


• The rate of suicide in countries will be reduced by 10%.
  - Baseline: 11.4 per 100 000 population


• 80% of countries will be routinely collecting and reporting at least a core set of mental health indicators every two years through their national health and social information systems by the year 2020.
  - Baseline: 33% of all WHO Member States

You can read a copy of the Mental Health Atlas by clicking on the following link

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/178879/1/9789241565011_eng.pdf?ua=1&ua=1