Ghanaians have to take their mental health seriously by regularly visiting health professionals for assessment, Kwaku Brobbey, Head of Communications at the Mental Health Authority (MHA), has advised.
He said mental illness is “close to us”, as there is a “thin line” between normalcy and psychiatric illness, hence everyone must make it a point to have their mental state assessed often.
Mr Brobbey made these remarks on Ghana Yensom, Accra100.5FM’s morning show, on Thursday February 2, 2017.
Calling for persons to pay more attention to their mental conditions, he noted that one way to regularly check-up on one’s mental condition was to include it as one of the many to-do things on one’s list for every New Year. Mr Brobbey said it was natural for people making New Year resolutions to have lofty expectations of the future.
“But one thing we forget is that we do not know what tomorrow holds. You can be afflicted by disease at any time. So as we make all these resolutions, then we mark out one critical resolution that ‘This year, I am going to check up on my mental health. I’ll do an assessment and see how far it’s going, to what extent am I distressed, my level of stress, a lot of things,’” he advised, explaining that such a move would be “critical” because whatever resolution one makes can only be accomplished if one is in the right frame of mind.
Mr Brobbey advised persons to not hesitate “taking time off” their busy schedules to have such assessment carried out, saying it is “very, very important” so psychiatrists can help patients deal with any stresses they may be going through.
The World Health Organization in 2007 estimated that approximately a quarter of Ghanaians at the time – 650,000 – suffered from a “severe mental disorder” while a further 2,166, 000 were afflicted with “a moderate to mild mental disorder”.
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
