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The project was developed by ManifestaMente, a citizen mental health initiative, sponsored by the National Mental Health Program (PNSM), within the scope of the financial support projects of the General Directorate of Health, and aims to “promote literacy mental health and combat the stigma associated with mental illness ”.
“The ‘Basic Mental Health Kit’ is a free online mini-course in Portuguese of approximately an hour and a half that addresses the issues that we believe are fundamental and that everyone should know about mental health,” said Beatriz, the vice president and coordinator of the project Lourenço told the Lusa news agency.
“You don’t have to have a mental health problem to make sense of attending this course. On the contrary, it is from the perspective of promoting mental health and even preventing any mental health problem that may arise ”, explained the psychiatrist, adding that it is“ a complementary way to the services that already exist ”.
Launched on the eve of World Mental Health Day, the course aims to help the population protect their mental health, “but it also warns of the signs that may mean“ that the person should seek some kind of help for themselves or for others, and “Call for individual reflection.”
Another aspect of the project is to help in the search for information: “many times people do not know how they will navigate the health systems to obtain a psychiatric or psychological consultation” and “it is very important” to have this knowledge.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, a study from NOVA’s Faculty of Medicine found that one in five people in Portugal had a psychiatric disorder, the second highest prevalence in Europe.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 1 billion people live with mental illness worldwide and one person dies every 40 seconds by suicide.
For this reason, the WHO has defined the theme of World Mental Health Day 2020 as “Greater investment, greater access”.
“Our lives have changed dramatically with covid-19. The fear of contracting the disease, the overload of health professionals, the adaptation of schools, teleworking, social isolation and unemployment are enormous challenges for everyone’s mental health ”, says the director of the PNSM, Miguel Xavier , quoted in Communiqué.
According to the psychiatrist, this course is the result of “many months of work to ensure that the information provided is truthful, but also accessible to the entire population.”
“We believe that it can make a huge difference in the way we understand and manage our mental health,” said Miguel Zavier.
The course was developed by a multidisciplinary team (psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses and other health and communication specialists) and can be consulted on the association’s website.
