Health News
Thailand to launch unchaining campaign for mental patients
Feb 16, 2012, 3:24 GMT
Bangkok - Thailand's mental health department will next month launch a campaign to encourage families not to physically restrain relations suffering psychosis or schizophrenia, news reports said Thursday.
The campaign, to be kicked off on March 1, will send mental health officials to rural communities to inform them of government medical services available to psychotic or schizophrenic patients, and discourage them from chaining or locking them up, the Bangkok Post reported.
Deputy Public Health Minister Surawit Khonsomboon acknowledged that many families resorted to confining relatives suffering from mental disorders.
According to health ministry figures for 2008, some 0.8 per cent of Thais between the ages of 15 and 59, or about 400,000 people, had some kind of mental disorder, with 70 per cent of those suffering from schizophrenia.
Global figures for mental health vary, with studies in Western countries reporting that between 1 and 20 per cent of the population suffer from mental illness in the course of their lives.
COMMENT
blog comments powered by DisqusLatest Headlines in Health
- 1. US Supreme Court to decide fate of healthcare law
- 2. Obama's health law hangs in balance with skeptical court
- 3. Supreme Court begins hearing on Obama's landmark health law
- 4. China vows to end transplants from executed prisoners
- 5. Nordic walking a simple way to get fit
Older Talkback
