PROMOTING PSYCHOLOGICAL FIRST AID  – THE NEED OF THE HOUR

India has the world’s highest suicide rate of 35.5 deaths per 100,000 people in age group of 15 to 19, and 21.1 deaths per 100,000 among general population, according to the WHO report. On September 5th “The Times Of India” reported that India has by far the largest number of suicides in the world, accounting for nearly a third of the global total and more than twice as many as China, which is second on the list. It also has the highest rate of suicides among young people, those aged 15 to 29 years. Coating the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) of 2012 “The Hindu” in 2013 reported that as many as 1,35,445 people committed suicide in our country in 2012, which means that around 371 persons commit suicide every day. This is Inspite of the fact that many suicide cases go unreported, fearing social cultural and legal tangles. All these data’s  suggests, suicide as one of the leading factor of death in our country and preventing suicides does not seem to be getting its due importance, when compared to the measures taken by both the government and NGOs to prevent various others diseases which has far lesser mortality rate. When a number or researches and articulations are done on understanding the causes of suicide, very few provide viable solutions.

Unconfirmed informations suggest that Suicide is the third leading cause of death among persons aged 15-24 years, the second among persons aged 25-34 years. Few studies suggest that at an average only one out of 25 attempted suicide culminates into death. In young people (aged 15 - 24), the odds are between 100 and 200 to 1, and around 4:1in the elderly.

If this is the case then think about the actual volume of people who have the state of mind, to commit suicide and one more disturbing fact is that, this does not include people who are held back from attempting suicide just because of the fear of trying it, only to end up in other self destructive activities such as excessive use of alcohol and other psychotropic drugs. The increase in the number of participation in rave with the intention of reducing stress using drugs such as alcohol, hasish, brown sugar etc and substance dependence among the youngsters of today is just another indicator of the enormity of the prevalence of the psychological problems caused by emotional turmoil that are not being identified and dealt in a befitting manner. If all these populations are included the volume of population which is under mental distress increases in leaps and bounds.

With very limited resources of trained mental health professionals available in our country it is a herculean task to make the ends meet and most of the individuals would not be in a position to reach out to these professionals when they are in distress. Popular methods based mass programs like stress counseling, training in yoga does have its part in helping the individual. But how much a person will be able to use these techniques when he is in a state of distress and whether these techniques will give the effect of individual intervention is another issue to be reckoned with.

One more point on which brain storming has to be done is whether any emotional plight resulting in psychological distress experienced is dealt with the same importance as a physical illness. In India the same is the case with the medical fraternity. But to cater the immediate need of people in medical distress, many lay people are trained in providing First Aid and the presence first aid kits are made mandatory in various public places, which has helped in decreasing the fatality rates among people who have physical distress that can lead to mortality. A Replicable model in the arena of mental health the PSYCHOLOGICAL FIRST AID (PFA),  may be one viable solution to meet the need of the people in emotional crisis and prevent them from involving in self destructive behavior.