{"id":65,"date":"2017-04-05T23:12:35","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T23:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globallyminded.org\/?p=65"},"modified":"2017-04-05T23:23:22","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T23:23:22","slug":"depression-in-myanmar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globallyminded.org\/home\/depression-in-myanmar\/","title":{"rendered":"Depression in Myanmar"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Dr Nwe Thein, Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist, South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Founder\/Trustee, Mind to Mind Myanmar<\/a> (UK charity registration number 1165005)<\/em><\/p>\n

When I was a medical student in the mid-1990s in Myanmar, depression was merely a topic studied for the exams. Patients with depression were not so visible in the\u00a0institution where we went for the placement in psychiatry. Students were more\u00a0fascinated by the strange psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia than the sad and gloomy symptoms of depression.
\nIn any case, psychiatry was not a subject that attracted serious attention from the medical students or doctors and specialists. The undergraduate medical curriculum paid very little attention to the mental health aspect of a person\u2019s health. Mental health services also suffered a similar lack of interest from the policy makers.
\nAccording to the WHO AIMS report in 2006, only 0.3% of the total health budget was invested in mental health.
\nRecent figures from the charity mental health clinics that are funded by our charity showed depression as one of the top morbidities among clinic attendees. It is nowhere near being representative of the whole population in the country, but it has certainly highlighted that depression is a common mental health problem in Myanmar like
\nanywhere else in the world.
\nIn Myanmar, depression is not much known or accepted as an illness. People tend to take it as a predictable part of life and try to get over it by getting on with their\u00a0routines. Those with mild symptoms recover while those with more severe symptoms worsen over time. By the time they are brought to the hospital, sometimes in\u00a0restraints, by their families, patients are very ill and lacking an insight into their\u00a0illness and its associated risks. Specialist mental hospitals in Myanmar, until\u00a0recently, could offer only unmodified ECT. Understandably, patients and clinicians dreaded this option, although it could be the only life-saving treatment of severe\u00a0depression.
\nThere is also a belief that the religion (Buddhism) protects people in Myanmar from depression. It is true for mild symptoms related to stress; people take refuge in the\u00a0religious faith, practise mindfulness and insight meditation, or perform the rituals which are in fact more traditional and cultural than religious. However, not everyone in Myanmar is Buddhist or particularly religious. More crucially, people who suffer moderate to severe depression need specialist medical attention and treatment.
\nIn recent years, the suicide rate in Myanmar has gone up a few positions in the list of\u00a025 top causes for YLL (years of life lost) quantifying the premature mortality.\u00a0According to the WHO report (2012), Myanmar\u2019s suicide mortality rate was 12.4 per 100,000 population, higher than the global average of 11.4. With the known link\u00a0between suicide and depression, this places emphasis on the need to diagnose and treat depression early and properly.
\nThere is hope and optimism. In a country where social cohesion is still strong,\u00a0Myanmar may not require all the formalities of the Western way of managing\u00a0depression, but rather a pragmatic combination of strands drawn from the evidence-based Western model and the inexpensive psychosocial approach based in its social\u00a0structure, community spirit and existing helpful practices. In order to achieve creative and innovative ways of managing depression, people need to talk more and talk\u00a0openly about depression first.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 2017 Volunteering and International Psychiatry Special Interest Group, all rights reserved. Reproduction by permission only.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Dr Nwe Thein, Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist, South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Founder\/Trustee, Mind to Mind Myanmar (UK charity registration number 1165005) When I was a medical student in the mid-1990s in Myanmar, depression was merely a topic studied for the exams. Patients with depression were not so visible in the\u00a0institution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,21],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-depression-around-the-world","tag-depression","tag-myanmar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8AOGr-13","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globallyminded.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globallyminded.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globallyminded.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globallyminded.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globallyminded.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.globallyminded.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71,"href":"https:\/\/www.globallyminded.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globallyminded.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globallyminded.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globallyminded.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}