The 55th Annual Conference of Indian Psychiatric Society 2003 (ANCIPS-2003) held in Hyderabad from January 9 ended on Sunday evening with a call to introduce a new Mental Health Act and more seats for post-graduate course in psychiatry. According to Dr P Raghurami Reddy, Organising Chairman, 2219 delegates attended the four-day conference and the next annual meeting of the Society will be held in Mysore in January 2004.

The conference with the theme "Mental Health Movement Towards Violence Prevention" had focused on the different aspects of treating mental illness. More than 200 foreign delegates, mostly Indians practicing in the US and UK, shared their knowledge and experiences with their Indian counterparts through symposia, poster demonstrations and case studies.

For the layman, the conference came out with little known facts about psychiatry. The publication of the World Health report, New Understanding, New Hope, strongly advocates the development of comprehensive community mental health services as the mainstay of mental health care, across the world. All the member nations of the WHO are now committed to the closure of mental hospitals. While, mental hospitals are being closed down in the west, more such mental asylums are being set up in India.

The process of re-provision of mental health services is well under way in many countries. This move towards community mental health services provides both opportunities and challenges to service providers, mental health workers, service users and communities at large.

The conference has highlighted that a large percentage of the people are aware of the seriousness of the illness, but the stigma prevalent in the society makes them hide the fact and seek faith healing practices. Most of the patients had been to faith healers before they came to psychiatric centres.

Personality disorder is the most common psychiatric disorder and also the most common disorder disregarded intentionally, leading to no response, partial response, failure of therapeutic alliance and so many other common clinical problems affecting the long-term prognosis.

Aggressive behaviour as seen in some acute psychoses is one of the main causes requiring in-patient treatment facilities. However, with the recent focus being on deinstitutionalisation and emphasis on community based treatment programmes, acute psychoses remain one of the few conditions defying the recent change in treatment policies.

Following are some of the other little known facts about psychiatry:

* There are less than 300 seats for post-graduate specialization in psychiatry in India
* large number of those who qualify in psychiatry go abroad. There are in fact fewer psychiatrists in India than psychiatrists of Indian origin in the US
* A WHO study places the number of psychiatrists in India at 3,500. Given 3500 psychiatrists for a population of 100 crore (one billion), it means there is one psychiatrist for every 2.85 lakh population
* Over one lakh people commit suicide in India every year, according to the police crime records
* According to a WHO report, one million people commit suicide worldwide, while 20 million attempt to kill themselves. They belong to the most productive years between 14 and 44 years
* There are 350 million children in India and just 20 child psychiatrists in the whole country and about 50 general psychiatrists who practise child psychiatry
* Most of the clinics are in the big cities and 80 % of the population who live in the rural and semi-rural areas have no access to them
* Global Mental Health Day is observed on October 10 every year
* About 450 million people suffer from mental and behavioural disorders, which is among the leading cause of ill-health and disability worldwide. And one in four people are affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point of time in their lives
* One of the most disabling afflictions among older people is Alzheimer's disease. One in 20 people above 65 years and one in five over 80 years suffer from this disease today
* Depression is common among the elderly. In fact, more than 20 per cent of over 65 years suffer from some degree of depression. An additional 10 per cent of the elderly diagnosed with dementia may actually be suffering from depression
* Schizophrenia is common than other chronic diseases. It occurs in around 150 of every one lakh people or about 1-1.5 % of the population, and usually appears during adolescence or young adulthood.