‘75pc of underprivileged people have mental health issues’

Seventy-five per cent of the people from underprivileged communities are afflicted with some form of mental health issue, according to a survey, so due to a lack of clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, and the stigma associated with the treatment of mental illnesses, the way to go is to train people of local communities in mental health counselling.

This was stated by Dr Asif Ali Imam, founder of the non-profit health organisation Sina that has been catering to the primary healthcare needs of people to lessen the burden of public tertiary-care health facilities, at a symposium on integrated mental health care at the Iqra University on Saturday. The event was organised by Savaira, a division of the Soorty Foundation, aiming to promote mental well-being in Pakistan.

Dr Imam stressed the need for making doctors providing health care at the primary level sensitive to mental health issues. He said doctors serving at local clinics for communities are in the habit of prescribing paracetamol for every health issue. Doctors serving at community level must understand various mental health issues so they can guide their patients wisely instead of prescribing paracetamol, he added.

The talk was moderated by Dr Taha Sabri, co-founder and CEO of Taskeen, who asked the panellists how people’s mental well-being can be improved by working at community level.

Aneeta Pasha of IRD (Interactive Research & Development) explained that understanding the demographics and local issues of any community is important to develop an effective community-based model for promoting mental well-being. She said communities of rural Sindh would be different from the local communities of Karachi.

She also advised taking leaders of communities on board before coming up with any solution for their mental health issues. She called for moving outside the healthcare paradigm and employing an integrated approach for the purpose. Successful community-based programmes need involvement of the communities, she said.

When asked how children can be saved from mental problems, she said that one of the common answers to that is training teachers in recognising students that need psychological support. However, she remarked, this approach has limitations because teachers in Pakistan are already overburdened.

“Mental health should be embedded in the curriculum from class 1,” she said, adding that including mental health in the curriculum would encourage children to talk about such issues without hesitation. She lamented that parents often offer resistance when efforts are made for the mental well-being of their children.

All the experts agreed that our society does not pay attention to mental well-being, and by a healthy life many people mean only physical health, completely ignoring other aspects of health, such as mental or emotional health. The Indus Hospital’s Dr Abdul Bari Khan remarked that the Covid-19 pandemic increased the prevalence of mental health problems because people often found themselves unable to attend the funerals of their loved ones. He said that there is a public health crisis in the country that needs to be resolved.

Later, the discussion turned towards spiritual treatment of psychological issues. Dr Imam said spiritual therapy should be based on scientific evidence. He added that Pakistani people are strongly influenced by religion, so they are likely to be attracted to the concept of spiritual therapy.

To this Aneeta added that Islamic psychology is an emerging field, and her IRD has also initiated a pilot project to train counsellors in spiritual psychology.

Earlier, former special assistant to the prime minister Dr Zafar Mirza had given his keynote address, and discussed how ensuring mental health is important.