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Abstract
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All across the world, patients are coming to their local Accident and Emergency Departments/Casualty Centers (EDs). They are in pain. Sometimes, their eyes scream out their suffering and other times they appear as cold, empty shells reflecting the hollowness the patient feels inside. Unlike patients with compound fractures or lacerations, patients with psychiatric illness have wounds that are rarely visible to the naked eye. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper. This is the face of mental illness, the stark picture seen by emergency physicians and psychiatrists, with problems ranging from depression to suicide and psychosis, as well as addictive disorders.
An estimated 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression. The World Health Organization has predicted that by 2020, depression will be the second-leading cause of disease burden globally. Depression is set to outpace ischemic heart disease as the number one cause of disease burden worldwide by 2030.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that depression impacts more than 26% of the US adult population with more than 1 in 20 reporting moderate to severe symptoms and that 25% of adults in the United States will suffer from mental illness this year and nearly 50% of adults will develop at least one mental illness during their lifetime. Indeed, in the United States, from 1999 through 2014, the age-adjusted suicide rate increased 24%, from 10.5 to 13.0/100,000 population, with the pace of increase greater after 2006. Similarly, after noting a downward trend from 1981 to 2004 (15.6–10.4/100,000), the United Kingdom has seen a rise in suicide since 2007 to a level of 11.9 in 2013.
However, suicide is not just a “ first world” problem. According to suicide.org, the global suicide rate is 16/100,000 and global rates have increased over 60% in the last 45 years.[6] One person commits suicide every 40 s. The highest rates of suicide are in the former Soviet bloc with Lithuania reporting the highest rate worldwide of 70.1/100,000 population. The national institute of statistics for Mexico also reports an increase in the number of suicides from 2000 to 2013 with a current rate of 5/100,000 population and choking, suffocation and strangulation is the preferred means to complete suicide....
Language: en |