Stigma
Stigma is one of the major causes of exclusion and discrimination against various groups in the society. It not only disrupts the family relations in a family but also affects people’s esteems and their ability to socialize. In healthcare, stigma is one of the social determinants of access to healthcare. For people with mental health disorders, stigma is a real issue as they do not seem to get the same attention as individuals with physical ailments. For a very long time physical and mental illnesses have been treated as separate entities. However, it is important to note that health matters are about both the abstract and tangible aspects of health. Mental health and physical health are intricately connected. In this light, there is a need to end the stigma associated with mental health. Ignoring mental health is highly likely to increase complications with physical health and decrease ability to carry out daily routines. Besides, stigma hampers the promotion of mental health and the provision of effective care. It leads to abuse of human rights. It also hinders the ability of the healthcare providers to implement policies and advocate for the needs and wishes of their patients. Therefore, there is a need for solutions to address this stigma.
One of the ways of addressing the stigma associated with mental disorders is to carry out education campaigns on anti-stigma. Interventions involving education on anti-stigma often present factual information about the problem with the aim of correcting that which might be considered a contradiction or misinformation in attitudes and beliefs. The education campaigns may be scaled from local to national level and often involve social acceptance of the disorders (Leff and Warner, 2006). The campaigns are effective in commitment and acceptance theory and may use mindful strategies to foster behavior change and change the beliefs and values held regarding mental health issues. One of the ways of educating the public is through peer groups, contact education, and mental health literacy campaigns.
Protests and advocacy are also important ways of advancing the human rights agenda. In this context, protests are objections to the negative representations of mental illness to the public (Robinson et al., 2019). Advocacy, on the other hand, is a call to action towards ending the stigma. Protests and advocacy may help to engage the fence-sitters and energize stakeholders to raise awareness on harmful impacts of stigma. They may also push for political reform on legislations towards enhancing and enacting policies that protect the rights of the people with mental illness and increase their access to social resources. Besides, the legislations may also help in reducing the inequalities that exist.
For quite some time, many health practitioners have treated physical and mental health as autonomous aspects of human health (Haugen et al., 2017). However, physical health has always been given prominence as mental health is ignored. The discrimination accorded mental health by professionals implies that there is a need to also relook the position of the concept of mental illness in the healthcare system. In addition to this, the stigma associated with mental illness implies that many patients are unwilling to talk about their problems. Perhaps it would be prudent if mental health was taken as seriously as physical health and equal attention accorded to each. This would not only increase their access to healthcare facilities, but would also make it easier to manage the condition.
One of the reasons why there is not much as action against mental illness and associated stigma as there is for physical illness sis due to the limited resources. Although the burden associated with mental diseases is increasing, there are still no adequate resources for treatment. In addition to this, the available medication are not cost-effective. They are also not covered under policy programs as comparably as the physical conditions. This shows that stigma starts right from the top leadership to the people who provide medical cover. In this light, it would be prudent to ensure that more resources are invested towards dealing with mental health disorders. This would involve increasing the number of medical covers for people with mental illnesses, increasing professionals dealing with mental health issues, and subsidizing the costs of the available medication.
In conclusion, stigma is one of the impediments towards the realization of universal healthcare. Many people with mental illnesses are unable to speak about their conditions for fear of discrimination. Stigma not only affects one’s self-esteem but also their ability to access health services. In this light, it would be prudent to educate the public on matters regarding mental health to increase social inclusion of the mentally ill individuals. Besides, advocating for the rights of mentally ill patients would increase their chances of getting equal treatment to the physically ill patients. In addition to that, it would be prudent to come up with policies that enhance the rights of the mentally ill patients and increase the resources allocated to treating mental illness. Significantly it would also be imperative to treat mentally ill patients equally with those with physical illnesses.