Occupational mental health needs special attention in fast-developing countries such as India, M.S. Alexander, consultant psychiatrist at Leeds in the United Kingdom, has said.
Dr. Alexander was delivering a lecture on ‘Occupational psychiatry and occupational stress’, organised by the Department of Psychiatry at Pushapagiri Medical College in Thiruvalla, on Thursday.
He said the World Health Organization had observed that mental health problems could be caused by a combination of biological, social, and psychological factors, and stressful events.
“They are usually associated with difficulties either in our personal life or in the wider environment in which we live.”
According to him, occupational psychiatry represents the extension of psychiatric knowledge and skill to the day-to-day functioning of individuals at workplaces and their organisations, with the goal of helping both function better.
Presiding over the function, Roy Abraham Kallivayalil, World Psychiatric Association (WPA) Secretary General and PMC Vice Principal, said attention to mental health at workplaces, including industry, had so far received scant attention in India as well as most of the low and middle income countries.
Dr. Kallivayalil said the WHO had stated that mental health problems and stress-related disorders contributed significantly to the overall cause of early death in many countries.
He said the WPA had a special section on occupational psychiatry.
According to Dr. Kallivayalil, it is important for general psychiatrists to become more conversant in work and workplace-related mental health issues.
Psychiatric focus
With business houses and governments increasingly attentive to mental health benefits and systems, appropriate psychiatric focus on organisational and occupational concerns becomes ever more important, he said.
Fr. Mathew Mazhavancheril, PMC Academic Director, inaugurated the meeting and A.M. Fazal Mohammed, Associate Professor, spoke.
