Mental Health Stigma in Africa: Confronting the Silence
A dictionary definition of stigma is as “a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person”
Stigma plays a major role in the persistent suffering, disability and economic loss associated with mental illnesses. There is an urgent need to find effective strategies to increase awareness about mental illnesses and reduce stigma and discrimination.
This clearly is the case with mental health sufferers. It leaves them shamed and shunned by their loved ones and friends. Mental health issues are least understood by most people, sometimes even the sufferers themselves. We as a society also use mental health terms very loosely. For instance, most people might be angry and going through issues which they refer to as depression.
When a person with depression finds it difficult to go outside of their four walls or step outside into crowds, the answer to this, from society is that they should get over whatever they are struggling with because we all suffer from depression every so often!
Sad right?
Society does not differentiate the regular everyday issues depression from the real depression, so there is no empathy or care shown to a person struggling with it.
Mental Health Central is creating anti-stigma campaigns focused on educating and reaching out to more people to allow them understand critical facts about mental health, how to identify a problem, and how to cope with the issue they struggle with. We target to reach out to individuals and organizations in order to setup educational and prevention programs in various forms of media and art through a wide range of platforms, (especially social media, follow us on Facebook and twitter), to discourage stigma and discrimination associated with mental health.
Stigma plays a major role in the persistent suffering, disability and economic loss associated with mental illness. Persons with mental illness are often victimized and face unfair discrimination, such as difficulties accessing housing, employment, and other societal roles. They are often mistreated by their family and friends, as well as the community. Loss of family and/or peer support, loss of employment and lack of access to mental health services (either because of limited access to services or because of the stigma attached to seeking mental health care) can worsen their mental illness. It can also place these individuals at increased risk of substance abuse and criminal activities. Many of these individuals consequently end up in the criminal justice system instead of being treated in mental health services. Other factors such as poverty also compound the detrimental effects of stigma on individuals with mental illness.
Studies have been conducted to investigate the level of stigma in our communities. Even for mental health nurses/ professionals practicing in public hospitals: studies indicate that a significant number of nurses/medical personnel hold negative and stereotyped perceptions of patients in these facilities.
This article is written to shine a new light into this issue of mental health stigma and try measuring the scope aligned on this issue and the impact it has on the affected and ‘infected’. Our intention at MHC is to develop stigma-reduction strategies that are urgently needed to address these issues in order to provide high quality mental health care and protect the rights of individuals with mental health conditions.
Recognizing the need to reach individuals, care givers or professionals who interact or are in charge of persons struggling with mental health issues is a great start. We at MHC aim at involving families, health practitioners especially those working in public institutions, even reaching out to prison workers in a bid to help educate them on mental health issues.
Abused persons are also shamed. In our society, a woman or girl child who has been sexually abused is blamed for it. It would be either her manner of dress or how she carries herself, but it’s never the perpetrator’s fault. Because of the shame admitting that one of their own has been abused, the victim is not allowed to report the matter or even access medical help in some cases. She has to carry this burden by herself. Sexually abused boys/men fare no better. It’s not uncommon to find one in hospital who will not even admit to the abuse because of the shame associated with it, in spite of the obvious harm to his body.
Very little awareness, is being done around mental health issues in Africa since most of the conditions are associated with spiritual and traditional beliefs and its sad to say that despite how modernized our health system has become, mental health issues has been compartmentalized into its own cocoon. As the rest of the health conditions get great coverage and concern, people and institutions that are involved in mental health are isolated. The truth and reality is that very little has been done systematically and deliberately by government or by the community to bring up the level of mental health in this part of the world.
Our motivation is dedicated towards helping mental health patients and raising awareness around mental health disorders. We have currently been sharing on anxiety and depression and we still have a great list of issues to highlight through our publication MENTAL HEALTH CENTRAL.
