No healthcare system can address all mental health issues. It holds true for developed nations as well. “When it comes to mental health, all nations are developing nations.” World Health Organization (WHO) Mental Health Advisor Dr Shekhar Saxena's observation is more than convincing. In India, the magnitude of the problem is rather intimidating due to unhindered population growth, persistence of indigenous and import of global stressors, and insufficient resources. Despite our efforts, the treatment gap is not receding. In the context of these hard realities, this year, we did a kind of brainstorming and decided to focus on mental health promotion, and current clinical practice guidelines (CPG) are a well-considered and highly practical step towards this.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first-ever CPG in the world that has been prepared to address, inspire, and empower psychiatrists to practice mental health promotion in clinical settings. This highly nuanced and comprehensive CPG includes various aspects and strategies for mental health promotion. It gives me satisfaction to see that it includes time-tested creative pursuits and need-of-the-century eco-psychiatric approaches as well.
It is a landmark work by the team led by Prof Shiv Gautam, Prof Sandeep Grover, Prof Jahnavi Kedare, and Prof Siddharth Sarkar. I express my sincere thanks to our honorary editor, Hony Editor Prof Omprakash Singh, and his team for final editing and publishing it as a supplement. I am sure this supplement of the Indian Journal of Psychiatry will help us in practicing mental health promotion.
Dr Vinay Kumar
President: Indian Psychiatric Society
Board Member (South Asia): World Psychiatric Association