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Stigma, shrink shortage haunt China's psyche

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-09-09 16:17

BEIJING: Talking people out of committing suicide is an important part of Meng Mei's work.

Working on a suicide prevention hotline in Beijing for eight years, she has a record of success in helping those afflicted with various types of mental problems but refuses to use the word "save."

"I am not God. I can not save anyone but only help them with their problems," Meng said.

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Mental disorders span various light mood and anxiety disorders, such as clinical depression, panic attacks and obsessive-compulsive disorder. They can also be more serious problems such as bipolar disorder (previously called manic depression) and schizophrenia.

The hotline Meng works for is run by the government-funded Beijing Suicide Research and Prevention Center (BSRPC) at Huilongguan Hospital, which specializes in mental illness.

The hotline, which takes calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week, has received more than 570,000 calls since it started up in 2003.

"Based on my experience, many people who want to attempt suicide are suffering from mental problems to different degrees but do not realize it," Meng said. The number of calls often peaks just after midnight.

Research on suicide levels in China carried out by doctors at the center in 2007 found a high correlation between suicide and mental illness -- out of 287,000 people who committed suicide each year, 63 percent suffered mental disorders.

In this sense, the hotline provides a screening service by evaluating callers' mental health. Operators try to help the mildly affected, but severe cases will be referred for hospital treatment.

There are 173 million people in China estimated to be suffering from mental disorders, roughly one in every seven people, according to a research report put together by a BSRPC team headed by Michael Phillips, the center's executive director.

The team conducted random sampling of 113 million individuals aged above 18, about 12 percent of China's adult population, from 2001 to 2005.

They concluded the prevalence of any mental disorder in China was 17.5 percent, substantially higher than the 7 percent announced by the Ministry of Health earlier this year.

Their report was published on the June 13 issue of "The Lancet", the prestigious international medical journal.

But only 8 percent of these people ever sought professional help and only 5 percent had ever consulted a mental health professional, the report said.

"Many patients didn't recognize their mental illness in the first place," said Zhang Yanping, associate director of the BSRPC. "They thought it was no big deal and they were just feeling a bit low."

"Sufferers are unaware the problem is usually an illness that can be treated," the report said.

Even among those who sought help, Zhang said, many were too ashamed to see mental health doctors. Fearing discrimination, they went to general hospitals instead to have physical complications treated.

"Such fears are deeply rooted."

Other people are inclined to regard the mentally ill as bad people, Zhang said. "Today in some remote countryside areas, there still lingers the superstition mental health patients have been possessed by demons."

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