ABSTRACT
The Social Network: Social networks can influence the help-seeking behaviour of people suffering from mental disorder, as a communication system by providing information and links, as a reference system by formulating normative expectations, and as a support system by providing care, reporting symptoms, and helping patients cope with psychosocial stressors. But there is the inhibitive influence of tightly meshed social networks that can lead to delay in contacting health facilities. People are pressured toward the acceptance of normative beliefs that can run contrary to formal help-seeking. Experience of the Mental Health System: Culturally, psychiatric treatment is a potentially difficult, embarrassing, and overall risky enterprise with respect to the individual’s sense of self-worth. This is worsened by the observation that health professionals demonstrate more negative attitudes towards sufferers than the general public. Inadequacy of Services: In the less industrialised developing world, biomedical mental health facilities are under-equipped and relatively inaccessible. Less than 3% of GDP is spent on health, and less than 1% of this is allocated to mental health care in some low- and low-middle income countries. Case for Integrated Primary Care: The book echoes the WHO submission that effectively integrating mental health services into primary care is the most viable way of closing treatment gaps and ensuring that people get appropriate treatment.
