As we move towards the end of mental health awareness week, I was interested to read how some health professionals have raised concerns about the goals of such a programme. Perhaps most widely quoted has been the psychiatrist Simon Wessely who stated: ‘We don’t need people to be more aware. We can’t deal with the ones who are already aware.’
This raises two points that, in my view, are of interest to the eye care professional (ECP). Firstly, the theme of this week is to heighten awareness of anxiety, something that is estimated to affect, to some degree, up to a quarter of the population.
The concern here is that an already oversubscribed and underfunded mental health service will become swamped to the detriment of those requiring much more specialist and medical interventions, such as people with schizophrenia.
Is there not a role here for all primary care clinicians to be able to help ‘triage’ those with anxiety disorders and direct them to more generalised counselling services? Or perhaps, with suitable training, offer helpful advice directly?
I have written before about a need to look again at introducing mental health training into our optometry syllabi, and still maintain this view.
Secondly, recent research has, sadly, implied that the stigma relating to conditions such as schizophrenia has actually increased in recent decades, partly driven by undue representation in the general media highlighting those rare cases where violent crime is linked with mental health. ECPs are well placed to inform and educate in this arena.
On a completely different note, did you pick up on the recent finding that it is possible to tell if certain types of sea birds have survived avian flu by looking at their eyes? Apparently, the virus leads to a change in iris colour in gannets, from blue to black. I nearly missed this as, when seeing the headline ‘Bird flu,’ I thought this to be unremarkable. Soz.