Why Most People with Depression Aren’t Getting Help
Why Most People with Depression Aren’t Getting Help

Why Most People with Depression Aren’t Getting Help

United States: A team of researchers from the University of Queensland, along with experts from the University of Washington, the World Health Organization, and Harvard University, studied mental health care in 204 countries. They looked at how many people can get the help they need for mental health problems. The study was published in a special journal called The Lancet Psychiatry.

Studies showed that 70 percent of Aussies with MDD are not getting the baseline level of care.

Dr Damian Santomauro from UQ’s School of Public Health and Queensland Center for Mental Health Research said the goal was figure out the proportion of the global population with depressive disorders receiving sufficient treatment.

Speaking to News.com.au, Dr. Santomauro said that 30 percent of Australians with a major depressive disorder in 2021 received minimally adequate treatment.

As reported by the Medicalxpress, “The best three regions in terms of basic mental health treatment adequacy were the high-income regions, however, their overall score was 27% and only seven countries had rates above 30%.”

Essential or marginal treatment of major depressive disorders as a minimum requires pharmacological therapy to be provided for at least one month plus four contacts with a physician or eight contacts with an appropriate specialist.

As reported 90 countries provided adequate treatment below 5% and this was least among the sub-Saharan African countries of only 2%.

Visual Representation.

“Globally, only 9 percent of patients with major depressive disorders had or sought the minimum level of treatment,” Dr. DIEGO SANTOMAURO said.

‘’The gender difference was slightly on the lesser side with a significant of females of 10.2% having it more than that of males 7.2%.”

University of Queensland psychiatrist and School of Public Health’s researcher Professor Harvey Whiteford said that most people with depression require more than ‘bare minimum’ treatment.

“Fundamentally, there is cure and with the right treatment, folks can recover fully.” Prof Whiteford added.

The pain and disability from depression can be lengthy, as well as dampen one’s relationships, employment, and schooling.

‘‘Indeed, in mental health funding and evaluation we need to care about the type and length of treatment, as well as about the availability.’’

Dr. Santomauro echoed WHO’s Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan 2013- 2030 that seeks to strengthen mental health services coverage by at least 50 percent by 2030.