Industry experts gathered at the media salon to explore new ways to provide mental health services

Chinanews.com, Shanghai News, October 9 (Reporter Jiang Yu) On the occasion of the World Mental Health Day on October 10, the "Mental Health Media Salon" hosted by the Cultural Communication Center of Jiefang Daily and supported by Boehringer Ingelheim China was successfully held in Shanghai. The event provided an in-depth interpretation of the Chinese versions of two reports in the field of mental health, "Schizophrenia: Time for Policy Reform" and "Rethinking Mental Health and Mental Health Services: Using New Approaches", in order to improve the public's overall awareness of mental illness and further explore new ways of mental health services.

Dr. Li Chunbo, Chief Physician of the Department of Psychiatry, Dr. Liu Dengtang, Chief Physician, Dr. Cao Xinyi, Deputy Chief Physician, Dr. Xu Lihua, Attending Physician, Dr. Long Jiang, Head of the Office of Foreign Cooperation, Dr. Yao Hao, Psychiatrist, and Ms. Yin Yuhan, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs, Boehringer Ingelheim Greater China, and other experts, scholars and business representatives in the field of mental health gathered together to share their research results and experiences in the field of mental health. At the same time, they also had a wide range of exchanges on topics such as the understanding of severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia, the current status of diagnosis and treatment, the plight of medical practitioners and patient groups, and the direction of future appeals and advocacy with the help of the media.

Mental illness, an unspeakably heavy burden

Mental health is becoming a major global public health challenge, with 1 in 8 people affected by mental health problems globally. Mental illness not only affects an individual's quality of life and social functioning, but also imposes a huge burden on families and society. As one of the serious mental disorders, schizophrenia mostly occurs in young adults, and its etiology is complex, and it is usually believed to be related to multiple factors such as genetics, environment and psychology. Often accompanied by a lifelong burden, it severely affects the life expectancy of patients, and its socio-economic impact is enormous, far greater than that of other mental health conditions.

Schizophrenia is characterized by three types of symptom clusters, which are mainly divided into positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and cognitive symptoms. Positive symptoms include the more well-known delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized speech. Negative symptoms are relatively insidious and often manifest as apathy, lack of motivation, and social withdrawal, and patients often lose interest in interacting with the outside world. Cognitive symptoms are easily overlooked, such as difficulty concentrating, memory loss, impaired planning and execution skills, and reduced word formation and thinking fluency.

According to the experts, early recognition and intervention are the core keys to the treatment of schizophrenia, which can significantly improve the prognosis of patients. At present, antipsychotic drugs, as the main means of treating schizophrenia, have achieved good results in alleviating the symptoms of acute attacks, but there is still a lack of rapid and effective treatment methods for negative symptoms and cognitive symptoms that affect patients' quality of life and social function for a long time. In the future, the optimization of treatment strategies and the improvement of treatment outcomes for patients with severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia require researchers and clinicians to further explore more innovative therapies, and at the same time introduce multidisciplinary collaboration and patient and family involvement, so as to obtain better recovery expectations and bring good news to patients.

Hand in hand, build a healthy and look to the future

Globally, mental health services continue to face three major challenges: First, stigma remains high, especially for serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia. The main reason behind this is the lack of social and public awareness of the disease, resulting in prejudice and discrimination against patients with severe mental disorders, and patients and their families are often afraid or unwilling to seek medical treatment in a timely manner because of the stigma, and often fail to receive standardized treatment in time for many years. At the same time, in the post-epidemic era, the number of public consultations on mental disorders has increased, and the demand for medical treatment is growing, while the current mental health medical service resources in mainland China are still insufficient, the report "Mental Health and Mental Health Medical Services Rethinking: Using New Methods" pointed out that the number of psychiatrists per 100,000 people in China is about 3, compared with more than 20 psychiatrists per 100,000 people in some developed countries in Europe (23 in France and 27 in Germany), the shortage of professional mental health personnel is obvious; In addition, the availability and quality of medical services vary significantly across regions, especially in rural and remote areas, where patients have difficulty accessing timely and high-quality services.

In recent years, China has gradually introduced a series of regulations and policies, such as the Mental Health Law of the People's Republic of China and the Healthy China 2030 Planning Outline, to continuously strengthen the construction of the mental health service system and promote the improvement of the mental health level of the whole people. Despite significant progress at the policy level in the country, the stigma of mental disorders in society remains widespread, especially in the area of severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia. Patients and their families often avoid public discussion of their illness due to the stigma and negative public opinion, and lack the motivation to seek help actively, which delays the opportunity for early diagnosis and treatment, aggravates the disease burden of patients, and delays the recovery process.

In order to break this dilemma, medical institutions are also actively working with all sectors of society to carry out various creative health science popularization actions. For example, the Shanghai Mental Health Center, through the innovative project "Gallery 600", allows patients with mental illness to show their inner world in the form of artworks, which not only improves the public's correct understanding of the disease, but also helps patients better integrate into society and reduce social prejudice. In addition, through community support and mental health education, public welfare organizations such as "Voices of the Heart" regularly hold patient activities to help patients and their families overcome stigma and enhance social acceptance.

This year, the national theme of World Mental Health Day is "Co-construction, Co-governance and Sharing, Together for Health and Peace of Mind", hoping to further expand the coverage of community mental health services through the cooperation of relevant departments and medical institutions, public welfare organizations, enterprises, media and other sectors of society, strengthen the dissemination of disease science, guide the public to correctly understand mental disorders, eliminate the stigma of diseases, and reduce stigma, so as to bring well-being to patients with severe mental disorders and their families, and embrace a bright future together. The guests at the meeting also pointed out that the rehabilitation of patients' social functions and their real return to society and normal life are inseparable from the support of medical institutions, public welfare organizations, social groups, governments and enterprises.

With the continuous research and development of innovative drugs and the continuous development of all-round innovative solutions, it is expected that more innovative drugs will emerge to solve clinical difficulties, improve the treatment outcomes and rehabilitation expectations of patients with severe mental disorders, and call on all parties to work together to build a better future of mental health and help patients return to society. (ENDS)

Editor: Jiang Yu