A department of psychosis studies will be established under the auspices of Tehran’s University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, announced Dr. Hamidreza Khankeh, deputy director for research and technology at the university.
“The secretary of Supervision, Evaluation and Expansion at the Medical Universities Council approved the proposal to start a Psychosis Studies Department at Razi Medical Education Center,” he said, reports IRNA.
Establishment of the research center complemented by extensive data on the prevalence of mental disorders in the country available at Razi will help devise a national mental health program to foster more widespread understanding about existing mental disorders.
The proposal for the center was made in 2014 by the university and was accepted by Dr. Reza Malekzadeh, the Health Ministry’s research and technology deputy.
Taking stock of Razi hospital’s century-long activity in fields of psychology, Khankeh said it now possesses a vast pool of scientific and clinical findings which will be instrumental in developing the national mental health program.
“We plan to set up a genetic and biological research laboratory for psychological disorders along with the psychosis studies center, which will provide fruitful scientific evidence to help prevent and treat neuropsychiatric conditions.”
“Studies reveal that 5% of the people in every society worldwide suffer from some sort of mental condition,” he noted.
Mental disorders are a significant public health issue and impose a tremendous socioeconomic burden on the community. Neuropsychiatric conditions have an aggregate prevalence rate of about 10% for adult population.
Head of the State Welfare Organization, Anoushirvan Mohseni Bandpei, at a recent seminar on ‘Women, Security, and Sustainable Development’ in Khorasan Razavi Province, said “over 23% of all people aged 15-64 years suffer from some form of psychological condition that require specialized intervention.”
In early November, social deputy at the SWO, Habibollah Masoudi Farid, said, “An estimated 50% of mental disorders develop before the age of 14, and nearly 75% before the age of 24.”
Global Estimates
About 450 million people are estimated to be suffering from neuropsychiatric conditions worldwide. In 1990, mental and neurological disorders accounted for 10% of the total disability-adjusted life years lost due to all diseases and injuries. This increased to 12% in the year 2000 and an analysis of the trends indicates that the burden will further increase to 15% by the year 2020.
According to the Mental Health Gap Action Program declared by the World Health Organization in 2008 in Geneva, the resources available to tackle the huge burden of mental disorders are insufficient, inequitably distributed and inefficiently used, which leads to a treatment gap of more than 75% in many countries with low and lower-middle class incomes.
Established in 1995, Razi Medical Educational Center is one of Iran’s oldest and largest psychology hospitals, and also in the Middle East. It offers services in psychiatry, psychology, paramedicine, nursing, occupational therapy, social work, clinical care, dentistry, radiology, physiotherapy, and shock therapy among others.
