Diabetes, Hypertension cause of mental illness

Sekondi, Feb. 2, GNA - Mrs. Vivian Quartey, a Deputy Director of Nursing Services at the Psychiatric Wing of the Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital said diabetes; hypertension, drug abuse and misuse are major causes of mental disorders.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview at Sekondi on Wednesday, she said most of the patients, who reported to the hospital, had such symptoms.

She said faulty upbringing of children, birth related injury, trauma from road accidents, and childlessness, were all causes of mental disorders.

Mrs Quartey said psychological problems needed urgent attention to prevent the individual from becoming a mental patient. She stressed that, there was the need for each community to have a community psychiatric facility, which would include a walk-in clinic, rehabilitation and skills acquisition centres, to assist people with psychiatric illnesses to visit regularly and freely, without being stigmatised.

Mrs Quartey hinted that the continual existence of psychiatric hospitals was not ideal, since it did not provide early recovery, while many of the patients were either abandoned and ignored or stigmatised and shun by their relations and friends. She said presently, there were only 11 psychiatric nurses in the entire Western Region but the workload was increasing on a daily basis. Mrs Quartey noted that nurses in the other sections of the hospital tease their colleague psychiatric nurses and this was having negative effects on their morale.