Economic Crisis and Mental Health

There are two fundamental ways in which the crisis can affect mental health. The first is by creating a climate of uncertainty, worry and generalized pessimism. The second is through the direct consequences of the greatest scourge associated with the crisis: unemployment and losses associated therewith. In both cases, these are complex and fuzzy factors, acting more on the most vulnerable people with fewer resources: ie, poorer, less sociocultural level, more isolated, and already sick. Unemployment leads to a deterioration of overall health, both mental health and physical health - in fact, there are two types of health: are the same -. Psychiatric impact of unemployment focus on males aged between 30 and 50.

Unemployment brings many consequences, not just economic. In our society, the work sets the tone for our management of time, our relationships, and our personal identity. To overcome the loss of employment, the person must strive above all not to let this loss will completely destabilize Must be a person with an employment problem, not a "stopped". It is essential to maintain the pace of life, physical activity, job search, training, and especially, social relations. Man is essentially a social being. All that isolates us, we just destroyed.

As I said, the crisis and unemployment are nonspecific stress factors that mainly affect people who already have other risk factors. Specific disorders are anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, and depressive disorders. But in specific individuals may precipitate more severe, or even be a determining factor for suicidal behavior pictures. However, it has not yet produced a significant increase in the number of suicides in Spain related to the economic crisis.

Although there are no national figures published or treated psychiatric morbidity prevalence, the impression is that the number of psychiatric consultations in the public sector is increasing. For example, there are data published in Navarre until 2010, the fourth year of crisis. The numbers of consultations remained stable from 2007 to 2009, but experienced a slight increase of around 0.5% in 2010. The increase is recorded on the growth of consultations revision, not the first cases, which remain unchanged. This increase could be influenced by the crisis. No changes in the levels of psychiatric hospitalization. Also keep in mind that most patients with type most associated pathology with the crisis -affective disorders such as depression or anxiety - it caters especially in primary care, and we have data on the number of people served by such diagnosis in Spain has grown substantially since the start of the crisis. The use of antidepressants has a more gradual increase from a decade ago, which masked a possible effect of the crisis. Not have specific data, but in my opinion it is unlikely that an increase in self-medication, given the ease of access to primary care.

In the private sector is especially appreciated more unexcused absences to the consultation and a decrease in the frequency of consultation, which can be replaced by a telephone consultation or even email. But overall, the patient does not lose contact with your doctor. My personal impression is that there has been an increase in defaults, or very discreet.

As to the consequences of the crisis in the long term, it is difficult to make predictions. But studies in previous crises do see that acute health consequences tend to stabilize. If the crisis becomes chronic, then we should no longer talk about the effects of it, but the consequences of economic deprivation: poverty, marginalization, migration, endemic unemployment, etc. Of course, they all have negative effects on health. But acute impact tends to be lessened. Human beings have an enormous capacity for resistance. After all, humanity has survived a long series of disasters of all kinds, some much worse this cri