Youth and mental health

Parallel lecture (P5)

MENTAL HEALTH IN DEVELOPMENTAL AGE

Health is a dynamic state of complete physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being, not the mere absence of disease or infirmity" this WHO’s definition of health implies the idea of a subjective perception of one's state, thus strongly influenced by the psychological condition of the person. Then we can say that ‘there is no health without mental health’. Throughout our lives, multiple individual, social and structural determinants may combine to protect or undermine our mental health and shift our position on the mental health continuum. Actually, a psychiatric disorder outbreak is the result of an interaction between protective and risk factors. Numbers say that 1 in 10 youths will experience a serious emotional disorder that will significantly affect their ability to function at home, at school, or in the community and 1 out of 5 kids suffers from mental health problems. Generally, 75% of individuals with mental disorders manifested first symptoms before the age of 20 y. Covid 19 pandemic has made things worse. One of the main cause of lack of recognition of the disorder and reduced access to care is stigma. Stigma can be defined as labelling a person as if they have a problem to be ashamed of, as if they can never recover and as if the disease makes them different as a person. Against stigma we must think that mental health problems have the same dignity as physical ones. There is no longer the concept of a confuse disease – madness - but of problems with an organic basis which is the brain and the nervous system and which are declined in many distinct disorders ( anxiety, depression, psychosis, obsessive –compulsive sdr, anorexia, etc). Each of these disorders has its own diagnosis and a possible therapy.