From the Editor
Many in high-income nations don’t receive needed mental healthcare. Moreover, problems run deeper in countries like India, where only about 4% of patients with depression receive minimally adequate treatment, due to the higher prevalence of stigma and the limited number of providers.
Could anti-stigma campaigns make a difference? Could technology be leveraged to reach those at high risk? In the first selection, Dr. Pallab K. Maulik (of the University of New South Wales) and his co-authors seek to answer these questions in a new paper for JAMA Psychiatry. They report the findings of a major study involving 44 primary health centres and nearly 10 000 participants across the states of Haryana and Andhra Pradesh in India. The interventions included both anti-stigma campaigns and an app designed to guide and prioritize care. “There was a significant difference in mean depression scores between intervention vs control groups at 12 months, with lower scores in high-risk cohort.” We discuss the paper and its implications.
In the second selection, Dr. Neil Krishan Aggarwal (of Columbia University) bemoans global conflicts and wonders about the role of psychiatry in a Viewpoint for JAMA Psychiatry. Noting that psychiatry helped create a less formal type of diplomacy, called Track II, he questions what role psychiatry might play in the future. “Mental health professionals can encourage dialog among foreign policy elites to reduce the possibility for military conflict.”
And in the third selection from Schizophrenia Bulletin, Constanza Morén (of the University of Barcelona) writes about her father who was a “magnificent person.” He was also an individual with schizophrenia. She discusses his journey and his challenges he faced within the healthcare system. “Patients live with their own voices, but, in a way, they need the rest of us to also give them a voice.”
DG
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