17 Nov 2022

It seems our forebears, with their simple, Are you well? (“A o tsogile?”)understood the importance of asking after someone’s health.

A variation of that question, has become the rallying cry at the ongoing Botswana Global Conference on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), which has placed a special focus on mental wellbeing.
Mental Health: Are you Okay? is the conference theme.

Asking one’s neighbour, child, friend or colleague that question might just save their life therefore people would do well to habituate themselves to asking it, health minister Dr Edwin Dikoloti said in Gaborone Wednesday when officiating at the conference.

“Batswana should check up on each other, especially on those who are going through tough times,” he said.

Minister Dikoloti said that simple but powerful gesture could cause a person struggling with mental illness to feel recognised, significant and that their silent cry was being heard and understood.

Enquiring after someone’s health would not only end the crisis of social isolation but would also foster community cohesiveness, facilitate counselling and help to prevent suicides among depression patients, said the minister.

Affecting over 280 million people around the world, he said, depression was one of the most common mental health disorders and the leading cause of ill health and disability.

It wreaked havoc in the workplace, school and family life of the affected and in some cases led to suicide, said Dr Dikoloti.

“At its worst, depression can lead to suicide… over 700 000 people commit suicide every year,” he said adding that young people were particularly vulnerable with suicide being the fourth leading cause of death among 15 to 29-year-olds.

Minister Dikoloti said the state of affairs led government to put in place effective community approaches to preventing depression.

He said they included school-based programmes to enhance positive coping among children and adolescents.

“Engagements and interventions for parents of children with behavioural problems may reduce parental depressive symptoms and improve outcomes for their children,” he said.

People need to show interest in others’ mental wellbeing and asking them if they were okay could go a long way in saving their life particularly as mental health disorders may not manifest as physical illness.

“Are you Okay’ routine saves lives,” said Dr Dikoloti.

He expressed regret that people were often misdiagnosed for mental illness.

Those who had no depression were diagnosed as having it and inappropriately placed on anti-depressants while those who actually had it were diagnosed otherwise resulting in them receiving no treatment and therefore deterioration of their condition, the minister said.

Drawing a correlation between NCDs and depression, Dr Dikoloti said cardiovascular disease could lead to depression and vice versa.

He said studies had shown that co-existence of NCDs such as hypertension and diabetes, with depression and other psychological morbidities, was detrimental to care and prognosis leading to poor glycemic control, uncontrolled hypertension and greater risk of cardiovascular complications.

“The severity of high mortality rates in those common NCDs may be due to comorbid mental health disorders, ” he stated.

He said NCDs killed more people in low and middle-income countries including Botswana.

But NCDs could be fought against with exercise being the major weapon against them, said Dr Dikoloti.

Tailored workouts for older persons in particular, had shown to be effective in preventing depression, he said.

Exercise, he said, presented some hope for many in low and middle-income countries, where despite availability of effective treatment for mental illness, still failed to reach 75 per cent of their people owing to numerous barriers.

They included lack of resources and trained health-care personnel as well as social stigma associated with mental illness, he said.ENDS