KARACHI, Aug 18: Speakers at a seminar stressed the need for improving mental health care facilities and increasing awareness about mental disorders.

The seminar on "Mental Health in Pakistan" was organized on Wednesday by the Higher Education Commission in collaboration with the Institute of Clinical Psychology, University of Karachi, for psychology teachers involved in degree and postgraduate level education.

In his presentation, Director General, Sindh Judicial Academy Justice (retd) Dr Ghous Muhammad presented a paper on the Mental Health Ordinance 2001 and discussed its different aspects.

He said that the 2001 ordinance had replaced a much oblivious act of 1912, which was enacted by the British primarily to protect society from the hazard of "lunacy". He maintained that the main purpose of the former act was to ensure legal and administrative efficacy rather than the welfare of the patient.

He said the 2001 ordinance stated that "mental disorder" meant mental illness, including mental impairment, severe personality disorder, severe mental impairment and any other disorder and disability of the mind.

Apart from the welfare side of mental health, the issue of insanity was an important factor in criminal proceedings, he added, commenting that the new ordinance was the first step taken in that direction. But there was still a need for a better and precise legislation related to mentally ill people and the scientific practice and psychiatry, he said.

Dr Inam Rasool of Baqai Medical University said there were about 1.5 million people suffering from severe mental disorders, while about 10 million people were suffering from mild to moderate mental problems.

Quoting the WHO statistics of 2001, he said there were 250 psychiatrists, 125 psychiatric nurses, 480 mental health care psychologists, 600 mental health care social workers, and 1,800 psychiatric beds in the country.

He called for well-planned public awareness and education campaigns to do away with the stigma and discrimination, increase the use of mental health services, and bring mental and physical health care closer to each other.

He suggested including communities, families and consumers in the development and decision making of the mental health policies. He also stressed the need for involving sectors other than health, like education, labour, welfare, law and non-governmental organizations in improving mental health of communities.

He called for more research into biological and psychological aspects of mental health for increasing the understanding of mental disorders and to develop more effective interventions.

Dr Uzma Ali of the Institute of Clinical Psychology presented her research findings pertaining to impacts of drug addiction on adults and children. She said that about 6.6 million children lived with at least one drug-dependent parent in the world.

These children were more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety disorders, somatic complaints, conduct disorder, psychopathic personality disorder, schizophrenia, severe aggression, low self-esteem, child physical and sexual abuse, and academic and intellectual problems.

With reference to international survey of 2002, she said there were 3.1 million drug addicts, 1.5 million of whom were heroin addicts, while the number of identified treatment centres was 73 and relapse rate was 90 per cent.

Dr Seema Munaf of the Institute of Clinical Psychology, Dr Zarin S Siddiqui of the HEC, Rakhshanda Talat Hussain, chairperson, Department of Psychology, KU also spoke. As part of the seminar, a workshop on stress management was conducted by Rubina Feroze of the Department of Psychology, University of Karachi. She said that stress was directly related to peoples thoughts and perceptions.

Giving tips on effective stress management, she said that occurrences of stress could be reduced if people remained steady and demonstrated an assertive behaviour rather being aggressive.