Let’s Spill a Little Bit About Schizophrenia!

Having a healthy body is a great gift from God. Humans can carry out all kinds of activities freely, such as dancing, gardening, exercising, and others with a healthy body. A healthy body is a sign which person is always happy in their life. But it seems that some people are not lucky, because God often gives illness to humans as a form of test. With a sick body, there is not much to do. All activities will feel heavy because the body is not in top condition. Physical pain such as fever, flu, cough and or broken bones can be treated easily because doctors can know directly where the pain is. But what about illnesses that don’t look like mental disorders? Of course it will be more difficult because it still requires a long assessment process before being able to determine the right diagnosis for the patient.

One of them is schizophrenia. It is a form of mental disorder whose healing is not as easy as healing physically ill generally. According to Nevid, Rathus, & Greene (2014) states that Schizophrenia is a chronic mental (psychological) disorder that can weaken and touch every aspect of a person’s life with it. In Schizophrenia, acute episodes form which can involve a split with reality which is characterized by several symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations as well as illogical thinking, slurred speech and strange behaviour. And between these episodes people with schizophrenia illness will lose abilities’ basic, including not being able to think clearly, tend to speak in a flat tone, difficult to understand emotions both voice, facial expressions of a person, and they cannot show a little expression of their own faces and emotions (Comparelli et al., 2012).

The prevalence of mental disorders worldwide according to WHO data (World Health Organization) in 2019, there are 264 million people get depression, 45 million people suffering from bipolar disorder, 50 million people get dementia, and 20 million people get schizophrenia. Although the prevalence of schizophrenia is recorded at a relatively lower number than the prevalence of other types of mental disorders according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), schizophrenia is one of the 15 major causes of disability worldwide. They have a greater tendency to increase the risk of suicide (NIMH, 2019). In Indonesia, based on the Riset Kesehatan Dasar (Riskesdas) in the 2018, the prevalence of schizophrenia/psychosis is 6.7 out of 1000 households.

There are a lot of people with schizophrenia in the world, even in Indonesia, so it has been informed that physical illness and mental disorders are equally important and require serious treatment to cure them. Therefore, implementing a healthy and balanced life seems to be one of the most effective ways to prevent various diseases, both physically and mentally. May God and nature always protect us.

 

REFERENCES

 

Pusat Data dan Informasi Kementrian Kesehatan RI. (2019). Kementrian Kesehatan RI. Retrieved from pusdatin.kemkes.go.id: https://pusdatin.kemkes.go.id/resources/download/pusdatin/infodatin/InfoDatin-Kesehatan-Jiwa.pdf

Nevid, Jeffrey dkk, Psikologi Abnormal, Jakarta: Erlangga, 2005

Davison, G. C. Psikologi Abnormal. 9 ed. jakarta: PT. Raja Grafindo; 2006.