Minds at risk: Plug the treatment gaps

India stands at a precarious crossroads where its demographic dividend is increasingly threatened by an invisible yet pervasive adversary: a deepening mental health crisis.

- Bhaskar Nath Biswal

Recent revelations from the Indian Psychiatric Society, shared ahead of their 77th annual national conference, paint a harrowing picture of a nation where over 80% of those suffering from psychiatric disorders are left to navigate their struggles without professional intervention.

Similarly, the data surfacing from the National Mental Health Survey and global health observers is nothing short of alarming. In a nation of over 1.4 billion people, the treatment gap for common mental disorders stands at a staggering 85%. Nearly 80% of children and adolescents with diagnosable conditions receive no treatment. Likewise, approximately 84% of senior citizens remain untreated, often because their psychological distress is erroneously dismissed as a ‘normal’ byproduct of aging or is masked by the isolation of the elderly. These figures suggest that India possesses one of the widest mental health treatment gaps globally, a situation exacerbated by a severe shortage of psychiatrists and psychologists and a lack of integration between mental health and primary healthcare.