MENTAL HEALTH AND SOCIETY REFERRAL
A general overview is cited to know the definition of mental illness. The classification of mental illness is provided between severe mental illness and common mental illness.Detailed description is given on recovery and services of the Schizophrenic patients in UK. Schizophrenia can be cured if diagnosed properly; this opinion is supported with relevant information and data.Literature Gap and uniqueness of this report is described and new possibilities are proposed for treating mental patients.
Mental illness is one of the common sufferings of people that are evident from ancient times. Formerly "Madness" was a common and generalized term used to define mental illness but later modern medical science have classified mental illness into a couple of segments such as Common mental sickness and Severe mental sickness. Minor mental setbacks such as anxiety, panic, hypertension belong to Common mental sickness. Complicated sickness like Schizophrenia, Bipolar disorder, personality disorder is grouped into severe mental sickness. This report focuses on a severe mental illness- Schizophrenia and looks forward to discussing the recovery and support received by the sufferers from mental health services, private providers and third sector support organizations. This paper rather provides a detailed description of the recovery of the patients than discussion of Schizophrenia and its symptoms. The special emphasis on "recovery" will help the reader to understand how the service providers facilitate the wellbeing's of Schizophrenic patients.
Schizophrenia: a severe mental sickness
Schizophrenia causes Psychosis and it brings with it some major disabilities and impacts on entire activities of the patient such as professional, educational, social involvements. Among the Schizophrenic patients discrimination, human rights violation are evident. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) two out of three people who suffer from psychosis are denied special mental health care. There are numerous treatment options for Schizophrenic patients and 33% people possess a high chance of recovery from Schizophrenia if they are treated appropriately (WHO.int, 2022). Schizophrenia people create their own imaginary surroundings of their own and live within it. They very often hallucinate, that means they can feel, hear, see stuff that in reality is not present. These people are often treated as mad and these behaviors are considered as intentional by the people around them.
People suffering from Schizophrenia are faced with consistent difficulties in thought process and cognitive skill development such as problem solving, attention, memorizing something. Schizophrenia is perceived among approximately 24 million people or 0.32% demography worldwide (WHO.int, 2022). Among the adult population the rate of Schizophrenia is 0.45%. This rate is not as common as other mental illnesses. The prevalence of Schizophrenia is more often in late adolescents and people belonging to the age group twenties, also men are more subjected to Schizophrenia than women. Schizophrenic people have the tendency to die 2 and 3 times more likely than other non-Schizophrenic people. Such patients tend to harm themselves or the people nearby when they go through aggravated mental anxiety, rage, and hyper emotion.
Sufferers of Schizophrenia experience breaching of human rights both in community background and mental treatment centers. The widespread stigma and intimidation against these patients made them excluded and outcast from mainstream society. They are even mistreated by their relatives and parents also. Such discriminations shorten the scope of Schizophrenic people to take part in health or mental care, housing, education, employment. A majority of Schizophrenic people worldwide suffer from the deficiency of effective treatment. 50% of sick people are diagnosed in mental care institutions, among them 31.3% are fortunate to have Schizophrenia diagnosis (WHO.int, 2022). The mental hospitals of the UK are not effectively providing intense care to the Schizophrenic peoples. Mental health care programs based on community include integrated primary and general hospital care, supportive health services, and third party service providers.
General concept of "recovery" from severe mental illness- Schizophrenia
The most notable feature of traditional mental health care services and regulations is the idea of "recovery". Experts and doctors have considered that this idea shifted as a central idea from conventional marginal concern in mental institutions in the UK. The idea of recovery becomes widely formulated among practitioners, clients and has become an integral part of the structuring principle of affiliated organizations and service providers. In the UK, the Department of Health implemented a framework for treating severe mental illnesses such as Schizophrenia. This department is responsible for providing health care and services by focusing on recovery of the sick people, their rehabilitation and personalization. The frontline health workers are specially trained for understanding the concept of recovery and the condition of Schizophrenic people (Brown and Baker, 2020). The policymakers are also encouraging the recovery principles to make it grow and counter the weakness of public mental institutions.
Recovery is significantly noted within mental treatment of the people who suffer from Schizophrenic psychosis. The practitioners define recovery as the absence of signs of illness, decreased rate of relapse and hospitalization. Trials in clinical research create evidence based psychological treatments. These trials conceptualize recovery as quantitative development of Schizophrenic symptoms. Service users define recovery as an ambiguous process that encompasses hope for a better life, constructing life and character. Recovery, according to service users is the formation of meaningful life with significant identity that is based on determination, hope and happiness. The service users elaborate that recovery is effective to eliminate psychotic and schizophrenic conditions (Wood and Alsawy, 2018). Psychological functioning is considered as important for recovery rather than elimination of symptoms (Vita and Barlati, 2018). Schizophrenia heterogeneously ranges from severe mental sickness to a single episode of psychosis, which is followed by recovery and full remission.
Difficulties in metacognitive functions have a deteriorating impact on wellness of Schizophrenic people. Metacognition functions prevent a person from confronting his mental challenges and also enable them to direct their own process of recovery. The latter opportunity enhances the interest of developing recovery relevant treatment and helps the person to grow metacognitive abilities (Lysaker et al. 2019). Recovery in Schizophrenia is a lengthy and complicated process that is influenced by numerous factors such as severity and extension of the sickness(Castelein et al. 2021). The function of recovery differs from person to person and it depends on time also.
Treatment and support the sufferers get from mental health service providers
General practitioners have recognized the effectiveness of prescribing to address the psychosocial needs of the patients. The practitioners also expressed the need to demedicalise for specific patients. General practitioners are responsible for prescribing medicines and they desire to help service users. Private providers of mental health services, third sector support organizations are benefited from positive outcomes from the patient to reinforce their social prescribing values. They discussed the necessity of formulating appropriate prescribing and medication for Schizophrenic patients (Aughterson et al. 2020). All of them agree that the patients must not face social discrimination and cruel behavior from people. Schizophrenia is curable if proper prescribing, therapeutic treatment and medication is applied at the right time. Licensed clinicians are responsible to define the problem of Schizophrenic patients by diagnosis and therapy (Park, 2020). Special emphasis on relevant practices in mental health services will benefit them to interact with Schizophrenic patients and provide services to them.
The service users express that they have been misunderstood since childhood and in many cases they have faced physical exploitation such as beating, confinement and even social seclusion. Private mental health service providers work for such patients and try to unite them with the society. Service providers use therapeutic counseling and interaction with the sufferers to make them feel no longer unwanted or detached individuals. Recent studies in the UK have reflected the effects of wellbeing of Schizophrenic people. Mental health of mothers and school going children are subjected to sanction based requirement of work (Dwyer et al. 2020). Common mental health strategy as recommended by WHO ensures accessibility of mental health services, shifting from large sectors to community based mental health counseling (Sadeniemi et al. 2018). Services must be provided to patients at primary mental health care, private institutions that provide services and in the community.
Mental health service providers account for important social processes such as isolation, alienation, fear that addresses mental illness. Service providers examine the forms of expertise and knowledge that are important to develop skills in multidisciplinary teams that take care of people with mental illness (Oborn et al. 2019). An emerging need of technology related guidance is putting forward the question that whether use of technology by service providers is ethical or it should be forbidden (Gooding, 2019). Utilization of digital technologies in mental health service is raising such confusions.
Impact of recovery and supports on Schizophrenic patients
Mental health recovery narratives are considered as active first person experiences that account the recovery cases from severe and common mental health problems. These narratives refer to actions and consequences within a time duration including adversity and struggle of mental sickness (Rennick-Egglestone et al. 2019). In the UK peer support workers and specialists are employed to support the mental health services which engage recruiting people for explicit role playing in mental health recovery narrative. Peer support workers can change mechanisms of role modeling recovery. The growth of such workers strengthens the fact that an increasing number of mental patients can avail recovery narratives. The impact of such a narrative is positively felt by the service users as they have begun to recover from the initial severity.
Recovery from mental sickness employs the process of evaluating the present occurrences, becoming aware of self-care, forming a sense of purpose, resourcefulness and using resources to achieve targets. Recovery colleges assist the mental patients in their journey to education, academic and profession. They assemble professional and life experiences of mental health problems in a non-stigmatizing environment (Wilson et al. 2019). Practice and principle of recovery approach to psychological health care is an integral part of mainstream policies related to mental health. The prevalence of recovery approaches impacts on the progress of first person recovery narrative from psychosis (Quaye and Rennoldson, 2018). Employment and involvement in social activities is known as an important method to cure mental illness (Morant et al. 2021). In the UK the rate of mental patients doing jobs and becoming professional is quite low.
Studies and researches have shown that most of the mental problems are observed during the childhood of an individual. The majority of the adult population of the UK has suffered from mental illness such as Schizophrenia or Schizophrenia disorder since they were 12 to 18 years. The children who are victimized by Schizophrenia become isolated from schools and they hardly develop academic or professional careers. Recovery and services provided by the organizations are concerned with proper rehabilitation for these children. Specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in the UK provide support to the young generation with severe mental illness (Hassan et al. 2022). Several private bodies are employed to develop the distressful condition of Schizophrenic children and facilitate special education for such individuals.
The UK is a developed country with developed infrastructure and modern clinical facilities. The mental health services of the UK use effective policies and technologies to make the life better for the mental patients. Developed recovery techniques, procurement of mental health services, high facility nursing and cure center of psychosis are evident in the UK. Despite such facilities, the increasing number of Schizophrenic patients, especially children, makes the health and human resource department of the UK concerned. Detailed descriptions and evaluation of the present scenario is important to address the rising cases of Schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses. Research articles and journals are not so much there in numbers that highlight such problems. Lack of secondary sources of information creates inhibition for carrying out research. The information is scarce regarding mental diseases and the concept of recovery is also not so much familiar with the people. Few people even hold the wrong opinion that mental illness cannot be cured.
This paper is devoted to producing empirical data and true information on severe mental illnesses like Schizophrenia. Definition and symptoms of the disease are already discussed so not so much words have been expended to discuss those. Rather the report makes an attempt to highlight the recovery process and services incorporated by mental health institutions, third party service providers. Undertaking longitudinal evaluation is necessary to make the health service sustainable in future. This paper hopes that these recommendation and information will positively impact on mental health care services in UK.