Mental health is an important topic of pubic health

1. Mental health

2. Mental health is the balanced development
of the individual's personality and emotional attitudes
which
enable him to live harmoniously with his fellow-men.
Mental health is not exclusively a matter of relation
between persons;
it is also a matter of relation of the individual towards
the community he lives in, towards the society of
which the community is a part, and towards the social
institutions which for a large part guide his life,
determine his way of living, working, leisure, and the
way he earns and spends his money, the way he sees
happiness, stability and security

4. Characteristics of a mentally
healthy person
 A mentally healthy person has three main characteristics:
 (1) He feels comfortable about himself, that is, he feels
reasonably secure and adequate. He neither underestimates
nor overestimates his own ability. He accepts his shortcomings.
He has self-respect.
(2) The mentally healthy person feels right towards others. This
means that he is able to be interested in others and to love them.
He has friendships that are satisfying and lasting. He is able to
feel a part of a group without being submerged by it. He is able to
like and trust others. He takes responsibility for his neighbours
and his fellow-men.
(3) The mentally healthy person is able to meet the demands of
life. He does something about the problems as they arise. He is
able to think for himself and to take his own decisions. He sets
reasonable goals for himself. He shoulders his daily
responsibilities. He is not bowled over by his own emotions of

5. Warning signals of poor mental
health
 William C. Menninger, President of· the Menninger
Foundation, Topeka, Kansas, United States of
America drew up the following questions to aid in
taking one's own mental health pulse:
 1. Are you always worrying ?
 2. Are you unable to concentrate because of
 unrecognized reasons?
 3. Are you continually unhappy without justified
cause?
 4. Do you lose your temper easily and often?

6. CONTD.
 5. Are you troubled by regular insomnia?
 6. Do you have wide fluctuations in your moods from
 depression to elation, back to depression, which
 incapacitate you?
 7. Do you continually dislike to be with people?
 8. Are you upset if the routine of your life is disturbed?
 9. Do your children consistently get on your nerves?
 10. Are you "browned off" and constantly bitter?
 11. Are you afraid without real cause?
 12. Are you always right and the other person always
 wrong?
 13. Do you have numerous aches and pains for which no
 doctor can find a physical cause?
 According to Dr. Menninger, help is necessary if the
 answer to any of these questions is definitely "yes".

7. Types of mental illness
 The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10)
 classifies the mental and behavioural disorders as (3):
 - Organic, including symptomatic, mental disorders -
e.g., dementia in Alzheimer's disease, delirium.
 - Mental and behavioural disorders due to psychoactive
substance use e.g., harmful use of alcohol, opioid
dependence syndrome.
 - Schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorders
e.g., paranoid schizophrenia, delusional disorders,acute
and transient psychotic disorders.

8. CONTD.
 Mood (affective) disorders - e.g., bipolar affective disorder, depressive
episode.
 - Neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders - e.g., generalized
anxiety disorders, obsessivecompulsive disorders.
 - Behavioural syndromes associated with physiological disturbances and
physical factors e.g., eating disorders, non-organic sleep disorders. ·
 Disorders of adult personality and behaviour - e.g.,paranoid personality
disorder, trans-sexualism.
 - Mental retardation.
 Disorders of psychological development - e.g.,specific reading disorders,
childhood autism.
 - Behavioural and emotional disorders with onset usually occurring in
childhood and adolescence - e.g., hyperkinetic disorders, conduct
disorders, tic disorders.
 - Unspecified mental disorder.

9. Causes of mental ill health
 (1) ORGANIC CONDITIONS: Mental illnesses may
have their origin in organic conditions such as cerebral
arteriosclerosis,neoplasms, metabolic diseases,
neurological diseases,endocrine diseases and chronic
diseases such as tuberculosis, leprosy, epilepsy, etc.
 (2) HEREDITY: Heredity may be an important factor in
some cases. For example, the child of two
schizophrenic parents is 40 times more likely to develop
schizophrenia than is the child of healthy parents

10. CONTD.
 (3) SOCIAL PATHOLOGICAL CAUSES: To produce any
disease, there must be a combination of genetic and
environmental factors. The social and environmental factors
associated with mental ill health comprise : worries,
anxieties, emotional stress, tension, frustration, unhappy
marriages, broken homes, poverty, industrialization,
urbanization, changing family structure, population mobility,
economic insecurity, cruelty, rejection, neglect and the like.

11. CONTD.
 Environmental factors other than psychosocial ones capable of
producing abnormal human behaviour are;
 (1) Toxic substances carbon disulfide, mercury, manganese, tin,
lead compounds, etc.
 (2) Psychotropic drugs - barbiturates, alcohol, griseofulvin.
 (3) Nutritional factors deficiency of thiamine, pyridoxine.
 (4) Minerals - deficiency of iodine.
 (5) Infective agents - infectious disease (e.g., measles, rubella)
during the prenatal, perinatal and post-natal periods of life may
have adverse effects on the brain's development and the
integration of mental functions.
 (6) Traumatic factors - road and occupational accidents and
 (7) Radiation nervous system is most sensitive to radiation
during the period of neural development.

12. Mental health services
 (1} Early diagnosis and treatment.
 (2) Rehabilitation.
 (3) Group and individual psychotherapy.
 (4) Mental health education.
 (5) Use of modern psychoactive drugs, and
 (6) After-care services.

13. ALCOHOLISM AND DRUG
DEPENDENCE
 The word "drug" is defined as "any substance that, when
taken into the living organism, may modify one or more of its
functions" (WHO)
 . "Drug abuse" is defined as self administration of a drug for
non-medical reasons, in quantities and frequencies which
may impair an individual'. ability to function effectively, and
which may result in social,physical, or emotional harm.
 "Drug dependence" is described as "a state, psychic and
sometimes also physical,resulting from the interaction
between a living organism and a drug, characterized by
behavioural and other responses that always include a
compulsion to take the drug on a continuous or periodic
basis in order to experience its psychic effects, and
sometimes to avoid the discomfort of its absence.

14. ICD-10 recognized
psychoactive drugs
 1. Alcohol
 2. Opioids
 3. Cannabinoids
 4. Sedatives or hypnotics
 5. Cocain
 6. Other stimulants including caffeine
 7. Hallucinogens
 8. Tobacco
 9. Volatile solvents
 10. Other psychoactive substances, and drugs from
 different classes used in combination.