Strategy urged for mental health

Stress awareness: The Government is being urged to establish a national strategy on mental health to combat growing rates of depression and work-related stress in Ireland.

Five days ahead of World Mental Health Day, Mental Health Ireland has described the absence of a national strategy on the issue as a "serious defect" in health policy.

The organisation's chief executive, Mr Brian Howard, said the Government had focused almost exclusively on physical health in its National Health Strategy 'Quality and Fairness'.

Yet "good physical health and good mental health are inextricably linked, each impacting on the other".

While initiatives aimed at tackling obesity and smoking were "very desirable and necessary", Mr Howard said, "in the increasingly stressful environment experienced by people at all levels, there is a need to be equally imaginative in promoting positive mental health measures".

Such measures might include mental health classes in schools, stress awareness schemes in the workplace, and public information campaigns on how to deal with personal trauma.

Supporting the call for a State-wide strategy on mental health, Prof Ciaran O'Boyle of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland said research in the United States showed improved mental health in the population brought major social benefits, including greater productivity in the economy, lower physical and mental illness and increased participation in democracy.

Calling on the Government to concentrate on measurements of public happiness rather than economic indicators like GDP, Prof O'Boyle said: "Major figures in psychology in the US are saying indicators of well-being in the population are much more relevant than economic indicators from a policy or political point of view.

"The research evidence over the past 50 years is that as countries have got wealthier, and got more spending power, and got more materialistic, the actual level of psychological well-being has not followed that track and if anything has fallen."

A strategy on mental health would be about trying to "lift all boats", rather than curing the mentally-ill, said Prof O'Boyle.

By promoting mental health "you are never going to make someone chronically constitutionally unhappy really happy. But you can probably move most of the population up a couple of notches, and that would have real benefits," he said

Mental Health Ireland is marking World Mental Health Day next Sunday by commissioning a major study into happiness levels in Ireland, the results of which are expected early next year.

The group is also circulating 50,000 postcards in pubs, restaurants and shopping centres, offering advice and guidance on maintaining positive mental health.

For further information see: www.mentalhealthireland.ie