The Importance Of Mental Health

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2011, mental health is a state of well-being in which every person recognizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to her or his own community. Moreover, there is no health without mental health. On the other hand, mental illness has become a significant worldwide health issue in recent years; more than 450 million people suffer from mental disorders (WHO, 2010).

Today the availability of specialists is limited for psychiatric patients in remote areas, especially during psychiatric emergencies. Furthermore, there is an extreme shortage of mental health professionals in low-income countries (approximately one psychiatrist per two million people and one psychiatric nurse per 200,000 people), which make the mental health interventions and care not implemented simply by specialists (Ventevogel, Jordan, Reis, & Jong, 2013).

In Jordan, exact numbers of human resources for mental health are unknown for both the public and private sectors. However, WHO estimates that in 2010 there were 1.09 psychiatrists, 0.54 other medical doctors (not specialized in psychiatry), 3.95 nurses (both associated and registered nurses, not specialized in mental health), 0.27 psychologists, 0.3 social workers, and 0.09 occupational therapists per 100,000 population.

Today telepsychiatry is the most popular applications for telemedicine through videoconferencing (Cash, 2011). It is the providing of health care and the exchange of information to provide psychiatric services across distances through any form of electronic media (Wootton, Yellowlees, & McLaren, 2003). Mental health services via videoconfere...

... middle of paper ...

...d periodically as treatment progresses. Health care providers should be aware of the importance of the location of the patient, both for legal and clinical considerations (Cash, 2011).

In emergency situations, the first step in developing a telepsychiatry service is to assess availability of resources to deal with psychiatric emergencies at the patient sites, including health services (outpatient, inpatient, police, other), and the parties’ expertise in handling such emergency psychiatric situation (Shore, Hilty, & Yellowlees, 2007).

Legal issues, requiring clinicians to conduct a site assessment to obtain information on local regulations and emergency resources requiring clinicians to be familiar with local civil commitment regulations and have arrangements in place with local staff to initiate and assist in this regard (Sharp, Kobak, & Osman, 2011).