Today, October 10, is World Mental Health Day and this year the chosen motto is “Mental health is a universal right”, where the objectives are to improve knowledge, increase its visibility and promote measures to protect it . Sant Pau has a long history and expertise in research, care and treatment of people with mental illnesses and has the necessary devices to address the various pathologies and improve the quality of life of patients. Among the main research lines of the Mental Health Group of the Sant Pau Research Institute, led by Dr. Maria Portella, highlight psychotic disorders, affective disorders (such as depression) and borderline personality disorder.
The commemoration of World Mental Health Day began in 1992 at the hands of the World Federation of Mental Health with the challenge of raising public awareness of mental disorders, fighting the stigmatization of affected people and promoting initiatives to improve – the attention According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem during their lifetime.
The Department of Health of the Generalitat de Catalunya states that mental health and emotional well-being is a broad concept related to the way we feel, think or act in our day-to-day life. Therefore, it is the basis for the well-being and effective functioning of people and communities and becomes an inseparable aspect of the concept of health: you cannot have good health without good mental health.
In this sense, the Master Plan for Mental Health and Addictions (PdSMiA), is the instrument of information, study and proposal through which the Department of Health determines the guidelines to promote, plan, coordinate and evaluate the actions to be developed in the field of mental health promotion, prevention and treatment of diseases associated with mental health and addictions, and improving the quality of life of affected people.
All this in response to the objectives of the Catalan Health Plan 2021-2025, which provides some important data: a quarter of the population over the age of 15 has emotional distress (1 in 5 men and 1 in 3 women), a figure that increases with age and is more prevalent in the most disadvantaged social groups; in addition, 7.4% of men and 13.7% of women from the age of 15 suffer major or major depression, especially from the age of 75, and especially women.
