"World mental health month, October 2018"

Our theme for 2018 World Mental Health month was ‘Mental health in youth and suicide prevention’. This was keeping in mind the high number of cases of suicide in adolescents and with deep link to mental distress. According to the Ministry of Health under the govt. of India, a number of factors led to suicide. A few specific ones as listed were Self-Image, romantic relationship, peer pressure, educational stress, addiction and mental disorders like anxiety, depression and trauma-stress disorders. We conducted various field interventions with the collaboration of local government hospital and psychiatry departments to reach out to the general public and create mental health awareness especially in our target group.

The first step we took was conducting mental health awareness programs in schools of interior Taluka and villages of Gujarat, India. Very soon we were able to reach out to 1100 students in schools, 200 health workers and around 240 nursing students. With profound outcomes, our program director was honored for the mental health session by H.o.D psychiatry.