October 10 is World Mental Health Day. Mental Health Day is being celebrated worldwide this year under the theme “Mental Health in an Unequal World”. A day of celebration for mental health began in Geneva in 1992 and Celebrated Mental Health Day all over.
The primary purpose of setting a day for mental health is to provide awareness and awareness to the public about mental health and related issues and problems. Accordingly, every year this day is celebrated all over the world through a theme related to that year. Therefore, this year’s theme is based on the intensification of inequalities in the gap between the haves and the have-nots that have emerged due to the worldwide spread of the Covid epidemic. That is also the reason for choosing this theme.
The theme also highlights the importance of mental health and how it affects people from various walks of life when mental health is not properly provided. For example, there are three main prevention methods for the public to control the epidemic. Simple measures include face masks, physical distancing and hand washing. What are the three main behaviours?
These behaviours happen through the brain. Three are two factors that affect those behaviours, that, thoughts, emotions and feelings go together. There is an interrelationship between these three. A person’s thoughts and feelings influence behaviour.
Covid highlights the importance of mental health. The most inequalities of the epidemic were the mentally ill. It is also seen that some people have mental problems due to this epidemic. At present, many sections of society have faced huge problems due to the social changes caused by Covid. This was a big social problem, especially affecting the next generation’s children.
School children in many countries had to stay at home for a long time due to this epidemic disease. It is very important to how that condition affects the mind. Children staying away from school life for more than one and a half years are a very bad situation.
There, the children’s mentality has undergone a change due to the loss of daily activities. A child going to school is not only about learning. Activities they can do at home are reduced. This is a psychological problem that greatly affects children. School provides opportunities for children to socialize with peer groups, participate in sports and extracurricular activities, endure victories and defeats and develop personalities. For most countries, only education is not a new thing. But for some countries, online education is a new experience, especially with the internet. Due to a lack of parental understanding, unsupervised children engage in online educational processes.
Being on the internet for too long has also become a big problem. Some parents are too busy to supervise it. Isolation of children at home when parents go to work also affects children’s minds negatively. Staying at home due to social distancing also means you don’t get the chance to socialize with peer groups.
Nowadays, the fact that children are lazy to a large extent (boredom) also the tendency for children to have anxiety, stress and depression in large numbers through lack of purpose and lack of activities. There the only work that can be done at home is spending time on the internet and it becomes addictive. The period of time that school children stay on the internet has now increased. The child becomes unable to control his behaviour on the internet.
It is a big problem to try to get rid of children from this and quickly become angry and quarrelsome and especially restless. There are also cases where some children have had conflicts with their parents due to their reluctance to get rid of it. Cases of suicide were also revealed in the past.
Due to the fact the children do not get the expected performance in school, hanging out in society, mutual exchange of ideas, personality development, winning and losing, being trapped in this online education system has a significant impact on the daily activities and social relations of the children and these activities are hindered.
It is seen that some children try to hide from their parents and adults about the use of the internet and related issues, and there are also children who have been subjected to cyberbullying through the internet. Due to inappropriate sexual activities, a huge problem has arisen. Accordingly, there are cases where children’s privacy is damaged.
Some children do not play any other sports and have made the internet their only hobby. The future negative situation for children who live alone on the internet is that they become distant from society due to the decrease in the external environment and relationships with people, as well as the personality of facing problems without fear, they become people with a fearful personality.
Physical health is also adversely affected due to the lack of physical exercise, especially with the interruption of all activities done at school. Conditions such as obesity and non-communicable diseases are common. Some children do not sleep at night and are suffering from many periods of sleep-related diseases. Due to all these facts, the intellectual development of children is also hampered. Factors that affect personality such as memory impairment, decreased capacity, decreased attention, decreased thinking and creativity, and inability to make decisions also emerge from this condition.
To avoid this situation, parents should make sure to spend time with their children whenever possible. Children should be given opportunities to engage in online education under adult supervision. Children should be given activities that they can do at home. Children participating in household activities, focusing on the environment and spending time with pets are more important to promote mental health.
However, with the spread of the Covid virus, there were many negative effects on many sections of society. It affects children as well as adults in particular. The reason for giving the theme of mental health in an unequal world this time is that the possible and inevitable social gaps, which have not emerged much due to this covid are increasing greatly.
The widening gap directly affects peoples’ mental health.
In general, all over the world, the mentally ill receive the facilities they need. Although they can be treated, it becomes difficult to get treatment facilities. This is more acute in low and middle-income countries.
According to the World Health Organization surveys, it is stated that there is a gap between receiving treatments. Accordingly, when 100 patients are taken, the remaining amount is called the treatment gap. The reason for this gap is social inequality. The health services provided by the government of some middle-income countries are provided according to three levels, namely primary, secondary and tertiary. In order to provide better health services, at least these three levels should be present.
Mental health services in some countries are only operated at the tertiary and secondary levels. The primary level has not spread across the island. It is one example of how social inequality affects mental health care. People suffering from mental illness are stigmatized by society. They are discriminated against because of those slurs. This is a very unfortunate situation. A mental illness is a disorder of the brain. Like any other disease, this is a disease. This situation occurs in educational activities in the family as well as even in the workplace. This slander and discrimination happen in many countries of the world. Misunderstandings and wrong attitudes in society cause it.
Our health service is a hospital-based service. And this works as a disease-based service. When it comes to mental health, we need to look beyond the disease. That is, the economic, social and environmental reasons affecting it should be investigated.
Therefore, in order to advance mental health, new recommendations should be made. This should be taken up in primary health care. Also should not be limited to hospital services but should be extended to community mental health services.
It should not be limited to the disease but should become a personalized service. People who care for patients should actively contribute and take responsibility for this. Because mental stress is often caused by the mind, we must understand and deal with this situation. We must understand the importance of mental health as the mind is fundamental to everything.