A. Rathinavel, Dean, Government Rajaji Hospital, addressing students in Madurai on Tuesday.
| Photo Credit: G. MOORTHY
Problems associated with mental health and ways to resolve them were discussed at the seminar organised by the Department of Psychiatry, Madurai Medical College (MMC) for the World Mental Health Day on Tuesday.
A. Rathinavel, Dean, Government Rajaji Hospital, addressing the students, said, “Stress has become an indispensable condition in human beings in the current world scenario, so the ways to mitigate it should be learnt. Everyone is suffering from stress, only the level of stress varies from one another.”
“One must learn to escape stress in a way it does not affect our everyday work, which, otherwise, could land us in mental health issues,” he added. Dr. Rathinavel advised the students to get involved in any physical activity regularly to avoid or overcome stress.
Mentioning the Psychiatry department in the Madurai Medical College, he said, “The department would soon become one of the important mental health centres for the people of southern Tamil Nadu, thanks to the new techniques and methods employed by the doctors to treat patients.”
V. Geethaanjali, Head of the Department and Professor, Department of Psychiatry, GRH, quoting the National Mental Health Survey of India (2016), said, “One out of 10 adults in India is observed to have one or more mental morbidity. Mood disasters, neurotic disorder and substance use disorders together formed the bulk of mental morbidity.”
She said that the risk of mental morbidity was found highest in people between 40 and 49 years of age in India, probably due to higher prevalence of substance use in this age group and stressors related to work and family issues.
“The rate of suicides is seen to be increasing every year in India, particularly in States like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Karnataka, which, in total, have accounted for 50.4% of the total suicides reported in the country mostly due to illness and family issues” she added.
