What Is Psychiatric Epidemiology?

Mental illness, also known as psychiatric illness, refers to diseases with different degrees of mental activity such as cognition, emotion, will, and behavior that are clinical manifestations under the influence of various biological, psychological, and social environmental factors.

Basic Information

nickname

Mental illness

English name

mental illness

Visiting department

Department of Psychology

Common causes

Different brain structures or functions, contradictions, crises, tension and trauma, social factors, etc.

Common symptoms

Personality mutation, emotional disorder, strange behavior, sensitive and suspicious, memory disorder, will behavior disorder, etc.

Causes of mental illness

Biological factor

The most popular explanation for mental illness today is a biological explanation; a person with a mental illness may have a different brain structure or function, or a different neurochemical reaction, whether caused by genetic or environmental damage (such as fetal alcohol) Syndrome). For example, many patients diagnosed with schizophrenia have been shown to have enlarged ventricles and atrophic gray matter in the brain. In addition, some people believe that imbalances in neurotransmitters can also cause mental illness. Many genetic and twin studies have confirmed that mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are inherited.

2. Psychological factors

Psychologists believe that contradictions, crises, tension, and trauma can cause mental illness, especially in a person who is easily injured. For example, a child who has witnessed parental killings may develop depression and nervousness and even get post-traumatic stress disorder.

3. Social factors

Sociologists believe that major events and situations can lead to mental illness. For example, people in the area have a higher chance of getting mental illness during social movements, wars or suffering from natural or man-made diseases. Areas of poverty, impermanence, and lack of resources and assistance also have a higher chance of getting mental illness than areas of wealth and stability.

Clinical manifestations of mental illness

Initial performance

(1) A person with a sudden personality change who was originally lively, cheerful, and hospitable suddenly became indifferent to others, alienated, lonely and out of place, living lazily, and not keeping discipline. There is no passion for anything.

(2) Emotional disorders Emotions become indifferent, indifferent to loved ones, not interested in surroundings, and become irritable. They often lose their tempers for small things and laugh or cry inexplicably.

(3) Behaving strangely Behaving strangely. Likes to be dazed and alone, it is difficult for ordinary people to communicate with them.

(4) Sensitive and suspicious. Be sensitive to everything and attach everything around you to yourself. I think that others are talking about him, do not eat or drink, think that someone wants to harm him, and sometimes even symptoms of hallucinations and hallucinations.

(5) The sleep disorder gradually or suddenly becomes difficult to fall asleep, and even when falling asleep, it is easy to wake up or not to sleep deeply.

(6) Psychoactive substances, mental disorders caused by alcoholism, mental disorders caused by organophosphate poisoning and independent mental disorders, mental disorders caused by adrenal cortex hormones, mental disorders caused by sedative hypnotic poisoning, etc.

2. Common symptoms

(1) Sensory disorders include hypersensitivity, regression, inversion, and lack of internal sensitivity.

(2) Impaired perception includes illusion, illusion, hallucinations, and sensory syndrome.

(3) Thinking obstacles include thinking runaway, sluggishness, poverty, relaxation, pathological repetition, inconsistent thinking, interruption, gathering, symbolic thinking. Logical wrong thinking, sophistry thinking, continuous repetitive imitation, stereotypes, and other words, as well as thinking delusions, paranoid delusions, and image delusions. Thinking insertion, etc.

(4) Attention disorders include active and passive attention disorders.

(5) Memory disorders include memory enhancement, decline, forgetting, fiction, fiction, latent memory, and seemingly acquaintance.

(6) Intellectual impairment is divided into congenital low intelligence and acquired dementia.

(7) Emotional disorders include experiences and expressions of joy, anger, sorrow, joy, love, hate, sorrow, and worry. Common affective disorders: high emotions, euphoria, depression, anxiety, fragility, excitement, dullness, indifference, inversion, horror, contradiction, etc.

(8) Will-behavioral obstacles include increased will, decrease, lack, inversion, contradiction, rigidity, violation, and stereotypes, imitations, weird behaviors, and strange behaviors.

Treatment of mental illness

Treatment methods include psychiatric medication, psychological counseling, lifestyle adjustments and other supportive measures, or a combination of these methods.

Prevention of mental illness

1. Carry out research on the cause and provide scientific basis for fundamental preventive measures. Etiological prevention is the most fundamental preventive measure. There have been many mental health research institutes and experts in China engaged in research on the genetic, physiological, biochemical, psychological and social aspects of mental illness. For certain mental illnesses with clear or basically clear etiology, prevention of the cause has been carried out.

2. Strengthen the investigation and research on the epidemiology of psychiatric diseases, and explore the occurrence, development and prevention of diseases.

3. Strengthen the education of mental health knowledge, improve the level of mental health of the population, reduce the incidence of mental illness, carry out psychological treatment for patients, publicize the knowledge of mental illness, correct or improve their own personality defects, and improve psychological resilience, which is beneficial to rehabilitation and Prevent recurrence.

4. Expand the professional team of mental disease prevention and control, and improve the professional knowledge of psychiatric specialists. Non-specialist medical staff should also have the necessary psychiatry, strengthen publicity, change prejudice against mental illness and patients, and facilitate early detection, early diagnosis and treatment.

5. Extensive establishment of prevention and treatment institutions for mental illness, and development of community mental health services, will help the rehabilitation of mental illness and prevent recurrence.