The Ghana Psychological Association has identified itself with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) assertion that depression is one of the major mental disorders that affects people worldwide.
Speaking in an interview with Alfred Ocansey, the President of the Association, Dr Collins Agyemang urged Ghanaians to pay keen attention to this mental disorder as the country continues to lose its abled bodied youth to it.
“280 million people suffer from depression worldwide, while in Ghana depression is one of the common mental disorders that affect the youth apart from stress and anxiety. And its mainly because people go through difficult situations or are mostly hit with crisis. However, this happens because we have little or no knowledge about the early stages of depression.” Dr Agyemang said on TV3’s Ghana Tonight on the 25th September, 2023.
He stressed the need to for people to seek help once they experience symptoms of depression.
“In Ghana, depression is one of the commonest that you can find. And is largely because when people go through difficult situations, when people are hit with crisis and given the limited knowledge that majority of Ghanaians have regarding the onset of crisis, a number of Ghanaians end up getting depressed. And it is usually at the advance stage that we get to know that indeed this person is getting depressed. It is usually at the advanced stage that people identify that someone is getting depressed which is not the best” he said.
It would be recalled that the World Health Organization (WHO) identified that 2.4 million Ghanaians suffer from mental illnesses. These include; anxiety, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia and eating disorders.
By Clara Boadi Konadu