Schizophrenia top mental disorder afflicting Filipinos who seek

help, says study

Schizophrenia is the top brain disorder affecting mentally ill Filipinos who seek
consultation and treatment in hospitals in the country, according to a study
released on Friday.

The study was based on records culled from the new Philippine Health
Information System on mental health (PHIS-MH), comprising information from
2,562 patients who consulted 14 participating public and private hospitals from
May 8, 2014, to May 6 this year.

The PHIS-MH is the country’s first database that aims to gauge the mental health
of Filipinos today.

A joint initiative of the University of the Philippines Manila National Institute–

Institute of Clinical Epidemiology, Department of Health, Foundation for
Advancement of Clinical Epidemiology and Philippine Psychiatric Association,
the system was developed to address the lack of a database and to improve
individual case support and monitoring of mental health across the country.

The project was funded by Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson and

Johnson.

Showing initial findings, project leader Dr. Ma. Lourdes Amarillo in a forum last
Friday reported that over 11,000 information sheets were distributed to the 14
participating facilities. Of these, 80 percent were collected.

Of the 9,066 patient records collected, 4,122 were encoded and of this number
2,562 were uploaded into the system. The rest were still wary about sharing their
records in the system, according to Amarillo.

“Even with this initial data, we should be able to come up with a figure that will be
useful for our country,” she said.

Elaborating on key findings, Dr. Tomas Bautista said that of the more than 2,500
patients who consulted the participating health facilities, 42 percent were living
with schizophrenia, a type of psychotic disorder that can be disabling when left
untreated. Majority of them were men aged 20 to 44.

“Many of them are male because they are more aggressive, especially if they are
floridly psychotic,” said Bautista, a psychiatrist at UP-PGH.
He said their families were more watchful of mentally ill male patients because

of their tendency to be violent, thus, they were brought more often for
consultation or admission to a hospital.

“The female presentation [of the disorder] is not as violent or aggressive as their
male counterpart,” he added.

Bautista said that from the initial figures gathered from the database, it could be
estimated that about one percent of the country’s total population, or roughly
about one million, are suffering from the disorder, which is usually caused by
chemical imbalance in the brain.

Sufferers usually have hallucinations or delusions and show extremely abnormal

motor behavior. They also often hear voices or see things. These experiences
trigger anxiety and withdrawal.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), roughly one in 250 people
globally suffer from schizophrenia. It appears in men in their late teens and early
20s and 10 years later in women.Initial records from the database also showed
that 15 percent of the patients who allowed their records to be shared were
suffering from bipolar disorder, followed by substance abuse at six percent.Other
disorders listed included major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder,
schizoaffective disorder, acute and transient disorder, and stimulant related
disorder.The study also showed that only 22 percent of the patients on record
were covered by the state-owned Philippine Health Insurance Corp. either as
members (13 percent) or dependents (nine percent).

Reaction

The Philippines still closed minded about mental health illness . As medical
practioner I would like to have more curios and aware what is mental health
disorder, educate every one of us even your self be aware and consult your
doctors. According on this articles showed that the most higher rate of
affecting mental health is male because of lack of trust and uneducated about
the menta healthl illness. Due to wrongful media portrayals , schizophrenia
patients are often perceived as unseen monsters that are safely locked away
in militarized intitutions. As long as we don’t have to see them , we don’t have
to deal with them . this manner of thinking couldn’t be more damaging. The
reality is mental illness can affect anyone.