Stigma

“Stigma and discrimination are major obstacles to effective prevention of mental diseases”, said Professor Norman Sartorius recently at a brain research conference in Brussels, Belgium. Prof. Sartorius is a former director of the WHO’s Division of Mental Health.

Schizophrenia is an example of a mental disease with a negative image, according to Prof. Sartorius. In Japan, psychiatrists used to hesitate to inform patients of this diagnosis. Enormous numbers of schizophrenia patients stayed in psychiatric wards for months without knowing their diagnosis.

In 2002, the old Japanese term for schizophrenia ‘mind-split-disease’ was changed into the less stigmatising ‘integration disorder’. As a result, the percentage of patients that were informed of the diagnosis almost doubled in three years’ time.

Brain scans

Traditionally, psychiatric diagnoses rely heavily on rather subjective methods such as interviews and questionnaires. This approach has proven inadequate for both clinical and research applications. More objective diagnostic tools based on brain scans and biological molecules are now being developed.

“I think in 10 to 20 years’ time, you will get a brain scan when you have a psychiatric disease to see which areas and cells in the brain are abnormal”, says Professor Hemmo Drexhage. Prof. Drexhage coordinates the Moodinflame consortium that aims to unravel the biological basis of mood disorders like depression and bipolar disorder.

Further reading

Read about another European mental health research project on HorizonHealth’s project page We Stay .