IMPORTANCE OF MENTAL HEALTH

The well-being of your mind is an essential factor that plays an important role in determining how balanced and productive your life will be. It influences your mood, thinking, and actions. Therefore, it is crucial to take care of your mental well-being.

Risk Factors for Poor Mental Health
Mental health is defined as the state where a person is healthy enough to deal with stress. In such a condition, he or she can be productive in the workplace and contribute meaningfully to the community.

But there are other conditions that may hinder someone from dealing with life’s twists and turns. They might also disrupt the individual’s daily functioning. This is why mental health is so vital.

What Mental Health Actually Means

While many consider “mental health” to mean “mental illness,” this is not the case. Mental health is relative. At one extreme of the continuum is good functioning, coping with stress, being able to relate to others, and feeling a sense of purpose in your life. The opposite end of the continuum means that there are chronic symptoms present which are interfering with daily functioning. Many people experience a continuum within the spectrum of their lives. The essential elements of mental wellness consist of emotional resiliency (the ability to recover from problems), the ability to form and keep up relationships, feeling productive or having a purpose in life, and being able to cope with changes. None of them requires perfection. Having a bad week, being sad because of a loss or nervous about something that is going to happen is just a natural part of being human. The question arises when you start experiencing negative emotions that are not going away and are interfering with your ability to function.

The following are some of the risk factors that might have an effect on mental health:

Childhood Abuse
A physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological abuse of a child during childhood may result in serious psychological and emotional problems. The victim is at high risk of acquiring various mental diseases like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and personality disorders.

The victims of abuse may eventually face problems related to alcohol and substance abuse. In addition to the mental problems, child abuse may cause various medical problems like diabetes and heart diseases like stroke.

Environment
One of the powerful factors that play a key role in determining the mental health of an individual is the environment of the person. Poor environment may affect the psychological well-being of the individual negatively.For example, weather can affect the number of suicides committed. Similarly, exposure to natural disasters leads to the increased risk of having PTSD. In some cases, air pollution can lead to negative impacts on depression.

Biology
Your biology may play a role in deciding how healthy you are mentally. There exist a number of psychological illnesses that have been discovered to be hereditary and may be passed down through family members. Some of the diseases include autism, ADHD, bipolar illness, depression, and schizophrenia.

Lifestyle
Lifestyle may also affect one’s psychological state. This includes smoking, unhealthy diets, drinking alcohol, substance abuse, and risky sexual activities. Such behavior may negatively affect one’s psychological state.

Examples of risk factors

  • Social drivers such as experiencing interpersonal and institutional discrimination
  • Lack of access to housing, healthcare, education
  • Lack of access to employment and economic opportunities
  • Adverse childhood experiences and other types of interpersonal violence
  • Social isolation
  • Poor emotional well-being or coping skills
  • Ongoing or chronic medical conditions, such as a traumatic brain injury, cancer, or diabetes
  • Use of alcohol or drugs
  • Genetic or biological predisposition

Mental health care and treatment

A national effort to enhance mental health not only aims at promoting the well-being of everybody but also the needs of persons with mental health disorders.This can best be done by the implementation of community-based care services that are more acceptable and accessible, ensure the respect for human rights and offer superior recovery results. Community-based mental health care should be offered through the integration of mental health services in general health care, such as general hospitals and task sharing by non-specialists in general practice;

community-specific mental health care, for example, community mental health centers and teams, psychosocial rehabilitation, peer support and supported living; and
mental health services in non-health sector, including child protection services, schools and prisons. Given the enormous care gap for some common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety, nations need to explore new ways of expanding care and diversification of its sources. Some of these include non-specialist psychological interventions and online self-help technologies.

Raynaud’s syndrome

Raynaud’s phenomenon is a vasospastic disorder that affects the hands triggered by cold or emotional stress resulting in symptoms of pain, pallor progressing to cyanosis, and coolness of the distal extremities. These changes are thought to be due to intimal layer hypertrophy and inflammation; collagen disposition and fibrosis resulting in vessel lumen occlusion. These vascular alterations have been described in the digital arteries, superficial palmar arch and ulnar artery. Angiographic studies have demonstrated little or no collateral circulation distal to the fibrotic vessels. Radiographic findings in the hands may include soft tissue calcifications when the patient has Raynaud’s as part of CREST syndrome, atrophy of the finger tips, acroosteolysis and intercarpal joint space narrowing. The differential diagnosis for acroosteolysis includes: psoriasis, injury (frostbite or thermal burns), neuropathy (diabetes, leprosy, myelomeningocele), collagen vascular disease, hyperparathyroidism, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) exposure, snake/scorpion venom and familial forms (Hadju-Cheney syndrome).

role of family in health and disease

The importance of the family to family physicians is inherent in the paradigm of family medicine. Family medicine does not separate disease from person or person from environment. It recognizes the strong connection between health and disease, and personality, way of life, physical environment, and human relationships. It understands the strong influence that human relationships have on the outcome of illness and recognizes the family as the crucible of the development of the person. Clinicians can be minimally involved with a patient’s family; they may provide the family with information and advice; they may provide emotional support to help family members deal with the feelings aroused by having a family member with an illness; or they can carry out a systematic assessment of family function and plan an intervention designed to help a family deal with its problems. Cultural norms, differences in the form and function of “family,” and an understanding of the family life cycle, together with an understanding of individual development, must be taken into consideration by the practitioner.

Society, culture & health

Bringing and building social science theory to understand the social and cultural determinants of health, how society produces health and the lived experience.

The Society, Culture and Health theme contributes new thinking using social science theory to the social and cultural determinants of health. We seek to understand how health is experienced and produced within an ecological public health framework. Much of our research incorporates a focus on health inequalities and questions of health equity.

Our members – who are drawn from sociology, anthropology, epidemiology, economics and psychology – employ novel combinations of qualitative and quantitative methods as part of their own research projects as well as contributing to cross-disciplinary approaches to research within RSPH.

Our research in health, culture and society encompasses many aspects of the social and behavioural sciences in medicine. We are interested in how various psychological and sociological concepts are applied in practice and contribute to our understanding of health, disease and the care they require.

We have a wide range of methodological expertise, including qualitative and quantitative approaches, and specialise in ethnographic research as well as undertaking behavioural and neuroscientific studies.

Our specific interests include:

  • Mental health and wellbeing
  • Healthcare work practices and cultures
  • Health and social inequalities
  • Experiences of healthcare
  • Psychosocial development

Our work is often collaborative and we engage with a wide range of NHS and third sector organisations. We work with patients, families and carers, healthcare practitioners, and policy makers. Our focus is on improving the practices of care as well as furthering insights across health and medicine.

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