Challenges in Mental Healthcare: Combating Prejudice and Misinformation
The IPq Portas Abertas event, promoted by the Institute of Psychiatry of the Hospital das Clínicas of the Faculty of Medicine of USP (IPq-HCFMUSP), will take place on September 22nd, from 8am to 5pm. The program will feature 160 lectures on various mental care issues to provide information, clarify doubts and provide guidance on mental health and psychiatric disorders free of charge. Prior registration is required for participation.
Táki Cordás, psychiatrist and coordinator of IPq Portas Abertas 2023, comments that the 9th edition of the event is the first after the coronavirus pandemic period. “One of the biggest issues in psychiatry is not the treatment, it is not the diagnosis, it is the prejudice and stigma surrounding the search for help and the effectiveness of treatments”, highlights the doctor. In this sense, Cordás comments that IPq Portas Abertas is a presentation event, for the general population, in understandable language, of the different areas of activity of IPq.
Pandemic and mental health
Even in the face of a scenario as terrible as the coronavirus pandemic period, some resources and treatments, such as online care, in the psychiatrist’s view, achieved notable and important progress, as greater accessibility was promoted to people who encountered difficulties with distance. Cordás states that, although it is not a good situation, during the pandemic it was possible to talk much more about mental health and promote a more dedicated look at problems related to human and emotional issues.
“IPq Open Doors is a way of highlighting to the population that psychiatric disorders are very common, in addition, it is a group of disorders most common among human diseases: five out of the ten human diseases that most disable are psychiatric”, says the coordinator.
Barriers to mental health
There are a series of factors that make it difficult to seek help when experiencing psychological distress, according to Córdas, and one of these barriers highlighted by the doctor is directly related to the limitations caused by the illness faced. “Often, the disease itself disrupts the self-judgment mechanism of personal criticism, the person cannot see some diseases what people around the patient say”, he explains.
Misinformation about mental illnesses and their parameters is also another barrier that prevents individuals from seeking help, as they believe it is a situation of “normal suffering” and not one that can be helped by treatment. Another challenge already mentioned by the doctor is prejudice, which generates a series of stigmas surrounding people with a psychological disorder.
Educational policies
In addition to educating the general population on the subject, Táki Córdas highlights the importance of educating the medical profession itself, as there are cases in which professionals avoid referral to psychiatry. Furthermore, he also cites an intrapsychic prejudice in which, sometimes, both psychology denies biological treatment and psychiatry believes in pharmaceutical care only.
“The combined treatment of psychiatrist and psychotherapy, pharmacological treatment is much more effective than isolated pharmacological treatment and isolated psychotherapeutic treatment”, says the psychiatrist. Thus, the role of a multidisciplinary team is essential not only for more effective care, but also as a means of disseminating mental health knowledge to different areas of medicine, not just psychiatry and psychology.