WHO: One in seven people suffer from a mental disorder

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 1.2 billion people live with mental disorders in the world today. This was told to journalists on October 8 by the coordinator of public health programs of the WHO Country Office in Belarus Valentin Rusovich, the correspondent of the Minsk-Novosti agency reports.

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The most common diagnoses are anxiety disorders (470 million people) and depression (322 million people).

Speaking about the system of care for patients with mental problems in Belarus, the speaker noted that thanks to the updated legislation, primary care specialists, including general practitioners, can officially diagnose and treat mild forms of diseases. This approach allows you to unload specialized dispensaries.

V. Rusovich also said that to help primary care physicians, the WHO Country Office, together with the Republican Scientific and Practical Center for Medical Technologies and the Ministry of Health, developed the Patient Electronic Atlas platform. It is an interactive knowledge base containing visual materials and video tutorials that can be used by both doctors and nurses and patients themselves.

- Since the identification of mental problems is based on a questionnaire, four major international questionnaires were included in the atlas, Rusovich said. This is Becca’s questionnaire, which helps to notice the signs of depression, the short scale of assessment (MMSE) – it is used for early detection of dementia. As well as the AUDIT test, which allows you to diagnose alcohol use disorders, and the M-CHAT-R questionnaire, necessary for the primary diagnosis of autism in children.

At the same time, the representative of the WHO noted, mental disorders are a wide range of conditions. In severe cases, the help of a psychiatrist or psychotherapist is necessary. However, in mild forms of anxiety or depression, lifestyle plays a key role. According to the expert, there are simple but effective recommendations that help the body cope with stress. And they work both independently and in addition to medications:

- This is compliance with the regime of the day, increasing physical activity and staying in the fresh air for at least 40 minutes a day. It is advisable to go to bed at the same time, eat full, refuse or reduce the use of psychoactive substances, including alcohol, nicotine and vapes. Equally important is warm communication with close people.