Understanding the aspects of Psychiatric Disorders

The recent acknowledgment of the worldwide importance of mental disorders has put psychiatry firmly on the international health agenda. The World Health Organization has evaluated that neuropsychiatric disorders and suicide account for 12.7% of the worldwide burden of illness. Major bipolar affective disorder, depression, schizophrenia, alcohol misuse, and obsessive-compulsive disorder account for five of the 10 leading causes of disability in underdeveloped and developing countries. In developed countries, dementia is the third most common neuropsychiatric disorder. Few aspects for the better understanding are given below.

•           Combating the Stigma of Psychiatric Disorders

Psychiatric stigmatization is the inappropriate and erroneous association of mental illness with something disgraceful or shameful. Stigma generates a hidden burden and results in barriers to mental health care, reluctance to seek appropriate care, delay in return to wellbeing, and discrimination in the allocation of resources. Stigmatising attitudes are found universally and can be deeply entrenched. There are two important factors to reduce the burden of stigma:

•           Personnel awareness, and   

•           Availability of effective treatments

Due to advancements in psychiatric research, today we have various effective treatments for the major brain disorders; the key to changing attitudes is education. But still today, people disagree on the symptoms of the disorders and ignore their mental health.

•           Neurobiological aspects of post-traumatic stress disorder

The traumatic stresses such as combat, sexual assault, car crash, or intensive cancer treatment, cause pervasive distress in almost anyone and triggers the post-traumatic stress disorder. The disorder arises because of the various emotional challenges during the trauma, resulting in a delayed and protracted response.

•           Cost-effectiveness of atypical antipsychotics

Atypical antipsychotics (clozapine, risperidone, olanzapine, amisulpride, and quetiapine) are the newer generation of drugs that produce fewer extrapyramidal side effects than conventional antipsychotics such as chlorpromazine. Generally, their effect is similar to the conventional ones, although few of them are shown to be more effective, for example-

clozapine in the treatment of schizophrenia. Because atypical antipsychotic drugs are better tolerated, it is often suggested that they should become the first-line treatment for schizophrenia. However, as the newer drugs can be up to 30 times more expensive than the older drugs, such a change has major cost implications. If atypical drugs are truly associated with greater patient benefits then it is reasonable to expect them to be cost-effective. Unfortunately, economic evaluations often fail to take full account of direct and indirect costs and exclude subjects who discontinue treatment.