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World Mental Health Day 10th October 2007
World Mental Health Day 10th October 2007
The theme for World Mental Health Day 2007, "Mental Health in a Changing World: The Impact of Culture and Diversity," calls attention to the fact that, during the past decade along with scientific and medical advances in the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses, the need to recognize how culture effects mental health issues has become increasingly important in the environment of rapid migration and the emergence of a multicultural workforce in mental health services in many countries.
There are approximately 65 billion people living on planet Earth. Within that number, there are more people living outside their country of origin than at any other time in history. One person out of 35 is an international migrant - 3% of the global population. If we look at our world today, is there any single culture, race or religion that is 100% contained in one single country? We can find dramatically different languages, religions, family relationships and values, as well as views on health care and treatment wherever we go, including in our own respective countries. A female mental health professional born and trained in India may have moved to the United Kingdom and is seeing a male client born and raised in Ecuador - how do they communicate and how do each view the same mental illness?
Culture may influence many aspects of mental health, including how individuals from a given culture communicate and manifest their symptoms, their style of coping, their family and community supports, and their willingness to seek treatment. Likewise, the cultures of the clinician and the service system influence diagnosis, treatment, and service delivery. Cultural and social influences are not the only determinants of mental illness and patterns of service use, but they do play important roles.
In the mental health care setting, culture impacts how people:
Label and communicate distress
Explain the causes of mental health problems
Perceive mental health providers
Utilize and respond to mental health treatment
How can we move forward and give the best care possible if we don’t take into consideration the differences of those we are trying to help? How do we overcome the barriers of language and cultural differences, views of mental illness, gender issues, and different training and teaching methods?
The 2007 World Mental Health Day Campaign will bring attention to transcultural mental health services and treatment. The World Federation for Mental Health looks forward to the opportunity of working together to develop an approach to health care that incorporates our cultural backgrounds and beliefs, deals with language barriers, and creates culturally sensitive forms of dialogue.
People are probably more tied to their cultural and ethnic beliefs when ill than when feeling well. Illness is stressful and may lead individuals to revert to what is known and comfortable.
Foundations of Nursing, "Transcultural Healthcare," Foundations of Nursing
World Mental Health Day is the annual global mental health awareness campaign organized by the World Federation for Mental Health and is celebrated in over 100 countries each year on October 10. For more information on the campaign, please go to www.wfmh.org