scholarly journals Social justice, health equity, and mental health

2022 ◽  
pp. 008124632110709
Author(s):  
Dinesh Bhugra ◽  
Rachel Tribe ◽  
Daniel Poulter
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Health Equity ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Stigma And Discrimination ◽  
The World ◽  
Poor Outcomes

There is considerable evidence to indicate that stigma and discrimination against people with mental illnesses are widely prevalent across nations. Research also shows that individuals with mental illnesses are likely to die 15–20 years younger than those who do not have these illnesses. In addition, they are more likely to experience delays in help-seeking leading to poor outcomes and are more likely to experience physical illnesses. Stigma and discrimination appear to play a major role in depriving people with mental illnesses of their basic rights. Their economic, political, social, and human rights are often ignored. In this article, we describe the capability to be healthy and basic principles of social justice related to mental health. We discuss findings of discrimination often embedded in laws of countries around the world in the context of basic human rights. We believe that clinicians have a key role as advocates for their patients. Clinicians and policymakers need to work together to bring about social and health equity.

scholarly journals Undergraduate Education in Psychiatry in India

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-16
Author(s):  
Roy Abraham Kallivayalil ◽  
Arun Enara
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Medical Education ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Medical Training ◽  
Common Mental Disorders ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Treatment Gap ◽  
The World ◽  
Education In India

AbstractMedical education curricula, from around the world, have often neglected psychiatry as a subject of importance in undergraduate medical training.In India, the scenario has not been different from the rest of the world. The National Mental Health Survey done in India, recently, estimates a treatment gap of around 80–85% for various mental illnesses. This provides a strong case to strengthen the undergraduate psychiatry curricula since it would help tackle the treatment gap of common mental disorders in the community.Further, a strong educational foundation with meaningful inclusion of mental health and well-being, will also make the trainee aware of their own mental well-being and better help seeking behaviour in the medical student. In this article, we look to review the evolution of undergraduate medical education in India.

scholarly journals Stigma and discrimination limit access to mental health care

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Thornicroft
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Stigma And Discrimination ◽  
Epidemiological Surveys

AbstractThis editorial provides an overview of how far access to mental health care is limited by perceptions of stigma and anticipated discrimination. Globally over 70% of young people and adults with mental illness receive no treatment from healthcare staff. The rates of non-treatment are far higher in low income countries. Evidence from some descriptive studies and epidemiological surveys suggest that potent factors increasing the likelihood of treatment avoidance, or long delays before presenting for care include: (i) lack of knowledge about the features and treatability of mental illnesses; (ii) ignorance about how to access assessment and treatment; (iii) prejudice against people who have mental illness, and (iv) expectations of discrimination against people who have a diagnosis of mental illness. The associations between low rates of help seeking, and stigma and discrimination are as yet poorly understood and require more careful characterisation and analysis, providing the platform for more effective action to ensure that a greater proportion of people with mental illness are effectively treated in future.

Prescriptive Power: Biologism, Biopsychiatry and Drug-centred Psychopharmacology

Somatechnics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 291-309
Author(s):  
Francis Russell
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
False Consciousness ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Biological Ontology ◽  
Health Discourse

This paper looks to make a contribution to the critical project of psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff, by elucidating her account of ‘drug-centred’ psychiatry, and its relation to critical and cultural theory. Moncrieff's ‘drug-centred’ approach to psychiatry challenges the dominant view of mental illness, and psychopharmacology, as necessitating a strictly biological ontology. Against the mainstream view that mental illnesses have biological causes, and that medications like ‘anti-depressants’ target specific biological abnormalities, Moncrieff looks to connect pharmacotherapy for mental illness to human experience, and to issues of social justice and emancipation. However, Moncrieff's project is complicated by her framing of psychopharmacological politics in classical Marxist notions of ideology and false consciousness. Accordingly, she articulates a political project that would open up psychiatry to the subjugated knowledge of mental health sufferers, whilst also characterising those sufferers as beholden to ideology, and as being effectively without knowledge. Accordingly, in order to contribute to Moncrieff's project, and to help introduce her work to a broader humanities readership, this paper elucidates her account of ‘drug-centred psychiatry’, whilst also connecting her critique of biopsychiatry to notions of biologism, biopolitics, and bio-citizenship. This is done in order to re-describe the subject of mental health discourse, so as to better reveal their capacities and agency. As a result, this paper contends that, once reframed, Moncrieff's work helps us to see value in attending to human experience when considering pharmacotherapy for mental illness.

scholarly journals Physician Self-disclosure of Lived Experience Improves Mental Health Attitudes Among Medical Students: A Randomized Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 238212051988935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrés Martin ◽  
Julie Chilton ◽  
Doron Gothelf ◽  
Doron Amsalem
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Randomized Study ◽  
Role Modeling ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Health Seeking ◽  
Health Seeking Behaviors

Introduction: Depression and suicidal ideation are common among medical students, a group at higher risk for suicide completion than their age-normed peers. Medical students have health-seeking behaviors that are not commensurate with their mental health needs, a discrepancy likely related to stigma and to limited role-modeling provided by physicians. Methods: We surveyed second-year medical students using the Attitudes to Psychiatry (ATP-30) and Attitudes to Mental Illness (AMI) instruments. In addition, we asked questions about role-modeling and help-seeking attitudes at baseline. We then conducted a randomized trial of an intervention consisting of 2 components: (a) a panel of 2 physicians with personal histories of mental illness speaking about their diagnosis, treatment, and recovery to the students, immediately followed by (b) small-group facilitated discussions. We repeated the ATP-30 and AMI after the active/early group was exposed to the panel, but before the control/late group was similarly exposed. Results: Forty-three medical students participated (53% women). The majority of students (91%) agreed that knowing physicians further along in their careers who struggled with mental health issues, got treatment, and were now doing well would make them more likely to access care if they needed it. Students in the active group (n = 22) had more favorable attitudes on ATP-30 ( P = .01) and AMI ( P = .02) scores, as compared with the control group (n = 21). Conclusion: Medical students can benefit from the availability of, and exposure to physicians with self-disclosed histories of having overcome mental illnesses. Such exposures can favorably improve stigmatized views about psychiatry, or of patients or colleagues affected by psychopathology. This intervention has the potential to enhance medical students’ mental health and their health-seeking behaviors.

scholarly journals Understanding barriers to accessing mental health services for newcomers to Canada using Peterborough, Ontario, as an illustrative example

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurun Layla Chowdhury
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Mental Healthcare ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Cultural Barriers ◽  
Accurate Information

The quality of an individual’s mental health has a significant impact on their quality of life, as well as on the cost to society. Regular access to mental health services can help mitigate the risk factors of developing mental illnesses. This paper examines barriers to accessing mental health services, using the community of Peterborough, Ontario, as an example. Social, economic, and cultural barriers impact help-seeking amongst immigrants, putting them at a higher risk of developing mental disorders. The social determinants of mental health can be useful when developing policies aimed at improving utilization of mental healthcare services. Policy makers need to first focus on collecting accurate information on the population, and then developing targeted solutions to eliminate barriers such as language and employment that prevent help-seeking in immigrants.

scholarly journals BEING THE CHANGE: SOCIAL JUSTICE IN EXTERNSHIP PROGRAM EVALUATION

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Katie Spillane
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Program Evaluation ◽  
Power Distribution ◽  
Student Outcomes ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Justice Sociale ◽  
The World ◽  
Blind Spots

Around the globe, clinical legal education [CLE] narratives resonate with a desire to promote social justice and the vindication of human rights. Yet scholarship exploring CLE’s accomplishment of these aims is scant and generally focuses only on student outcomes. This literature appears to be based not on theory and results, but hope: the hope that changed students will change the world. To invest on hope alone is unwise, particularly when all stakeholders face financially precarious times. In this context, this article argues that the existing focus on student outcomes is disproportionate and unhelpful. The existing narrow focus on student outcomes marginalizes other stakeholders and creates significant blind spots in program evaluation. This article proposes a broader analysis that would ask what value systems and power distribution CLE programs themselves create or reinforce, focusing on both the immediate impact of CLE programming and reinforcing the values human rights education seeks to inculcate by incorporating these into the structure of CLE programs themselves. Aux quatre coins du monde, le discours sur l’enseignement juridique clinique est empreint d’une soif de promouvoir la justice sociale et de défendre les droits de la personne. Pourtant, les travaux des universitaires portant sur l’atteinte de ces objectifs sont rares et se concentrent généralement sur les résultats touchant les étudiants. Ces écrits semblent fondés non pas sur des théories et des résultats mais sur l’espoir : l’espoir que des étudiants transformés transformeront le monde. Miser sur l’espoir seul est une erreur, surtout quand tous les intervenants sont aux prises avec la précarité financière. Dans ce contexte, l’auteure de cet article soutient que les efforts actuels ciblés sur les résultats touchant les étudiants sont disproportionnés et inutiles. Ce ciblage étroit marginalise les autres intervenants et crée de gros angles morts dans l’évaluation des programmes. Dans son article, l’auteure propose une analyse élargie qui pose la question de savoir quels systèmes de valeurs et quelle répartition des pouvoirs les programmes d’enseignement juridique clinique créent ou renforcent, l’accent étant mis sur les répercussions immédiates de ces programmes et sur le renforcement des valeurs que l’éducation aux droits de la personne humaine semble inculquer par l’intégration de ces valeurs dans la structure même des programmes en question.

scholarly journals Longitudinal assessment of an anti-stigma campaign related to common mental disorders in rural India

2018 ◽  
Vol 214 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pallab K. Maulik ◽  
Siddhardha Devarapalli ◽  
Sudha Kallakuri ◽  
Anadya Prakash Tripathi ◽  
Mirja Koschorke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Primary Care ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Common Mental Disorders ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Rural India ◽  
Time Points ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Services Delivery

BackgroundStigma related to mental health and lack of trained mental health professionals is a major cause for an increased treatment gap, particularly in rural India. The Systematic Medical Appraisal, Referral and Treatment (SMART) Mental Health project delivered a complex intervention involving task sharing, an anti-stigma campaign and use of technology-based, decision-support tools to empower primary care workers to identify and manage depression, anxiety, stress and suicide risk.AimsThe aim of this article is to report changes in stigma perceptions over three time points in the rural communities where the anti-stigma campaign was conducted.MethodA multimedia-based anti-stigma campaign was conducted over a 3-month period in the West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, India. Following that, the primary care-based mental health service was delivered for 1 year. The anti-stigma campaign was evaluated in two villages and data were captured at three time points over a 24-month period (N = 1417): before and after delivery of the campaign and after completion of the health services delivery intervention. Standardised tools captured data on knowledge, attitude and behaviour towards mental health as well as perceptions related to help seeking for mental illnesses.ResultsMost knowledge, attitude and behaviour scores improved over the three time points. Overall mean scores on stigma perceptions related to help seeking improved by −0.375 (minimum/maximum of −2.7/2.4, s.d. 0.519, P < 0.001) during this time. Loss to follow-up was 10%.ConclusionsThe data highlight the positive effects of an anti-stigma campaign over a 2-year period.Declaration of interestNone.

Poverty, Human Rights and the Quest for Sustainable Human Development in Structurally-Adjusted Uganda

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-44
Author(s):  
J. Oloka-Onyango
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Political System ◽  
Economic Adjustment ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Sustainable Human Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Resistance Movement ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

In a bid to address the almost two decades of economic malaise and decline that Uganda had experienced in the 1970s and 1980s, Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Movement adopted radical measures of economic adjustment under the tutelage of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Although those measures resulted in significant economic growth – in GDP terms – this article argues that they failed to be conscious of basic principles of human rights relating to equality, non-discrimination and participation, and have consequently compounded the situation of poverty in the country. It further argues that the ‘non-party’ political system in existence further undermines the promotion and protection of fundamental human rights.

Nursing care in mental health: Human rights and ethical issues

2020 ◽  
pp. 096973302095210
Author(s):  
Carla Aparecida Arena Ventura ◽  
Wendy Austin ◽  
Bruna Sordi Carrara ◽  
Emanuele Seicenti de Brito
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Nursing Care ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Mental Health Nursing ◽  
Mental Health Nurses

People with mental illness are subjected to stigma and discrimination and constantly face restrictions in the exercise of their political, civil and social rights. Considering this scenario, mental health, ethics and human rights are key approaches to advance the well-being of persons with mental illnesses. The study was conducted to review the scope of the empirical literature available to answer the research question: What evidence is available regarding human rights and ethical issues regarding nursing care to persons with mental illnesses? A scoping review methodology guided by Arksey and O’Malley was used. Studies were identified by conducting electronic searches on CINAHL, PubMed, SCOPUS and Hein databases. Of 312 citations, 26 articles matched the inclusion criteria. The central theme which emerged from the literature was “Ethics and Human Rights Boundaries to Mental Health Nursing practice”. Mental health nurses play a key and valuable role in ensuring that their interventions are based on ethical and human rights principles. Mental health nurses seem to have difficulty engaging with the ethical issues in mental health, and generally are dealing with acts of paternalism and with the common justification for those acts. It is important to open a debate regarding possible solutions for this ethical dilemma, with the purpose to enable nurses to function in a way that is morally acceptable to the profession, patients and members of the public. This review may serve as an instrument for healthcare professionals, especially nurses, to reflect about how to fulfil their ethical responsibilities towards persons with mental illnesses, protecting them from discrimination and safeguarding their human rights, respecting their autonomy, and as a value, keeping the individual at the centre of ethical discourse.

Athletes Connected: Results From a Pilot Project to Address Knowledge and Attitudes About Mental Health Among College Student-Athletes

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 324-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Kern ◽  
William Heininger ◽  
Emily Klueh ◽  
Stephanie Salazar ◽  
Barbara Hansen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
College Student ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Student Athletes ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
New Research ◽  
College Student Athletes

Student-athletes experience mental health problems, but they often encounter barriers to seeking help. This study reports findings from the pilot phase of Athletes Connected (AC), a new research and practice program at the University of Michigan addressing mental health and help-seeking behaviors among collegiate student-athletes. Members of the AC team gave presentations consisting of contact- and education-based interventions to every varsity athletic team at a large Division I Midwestern university, along with pre- and postsurvey questionnaires to measure their efficacy. The presentations included an educational overview of mental health, two videos highlighting former student-athletes’ struggles with mental illnesses, and a discussion at the end with the former athletes portrayed in the videos. A total of 626 student-athletes completed the pre- and postsurveys. Results indicated significant increases in knowledge and positive attitudes toward mental health and help-seeking. These results suggest that brief contact- and education-based interventions may be helpful in reducing stigma and promoting help-seeking behavior among college student-athletes.

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