Hyderabad: Complete recovery and return to life is very important for people who have suffered mental illness. For this, psychiatrists have to ensure that medication and counselling work effectively.
Discussing these issues at the 67th annual national conference of the Indian Psychiatric Society, psychiatrists agreed that the ability of the patient to recover will instil the confidence that is required to complete the treatment.
A senior psychiatrist said, “People used to get very scared at the thought of cancer, but now they go to oncologists because they know it can be cured. Similarly, a sense of confidence needs to be created in society that it is possible to recover from mental illness.”
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Producing results is the key to effective treatment and stake-holders like psychiatrists, psychologists and clinical psychologists have to work as a team to achieve results.
The odds, however, are stacked. There are only 6,500 psychiatrists as against the required 12,000. This inadequate medical force has to tackle the increasing number of cases of depression, attention deficiency syndrome, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia and others.
Psychiatrist M.S. Reddy said, “Depression is going to be one of the leading disorders till 2030, superseding all others. This is because it is now being seen that depression is caused not only by genetic pre-dispositions but also because of external factors.”
