Abstract: | Mental health services in sub-Saharan Africa are much less developed than they should be. Constraints to their development include preoccupation with psychiatric disorders, lack of a national policy on mental health, negative attitudes towards the mentally ill, ignorance, belief that mental illness is the concern of the traditional healer, shortage of trained personnel and of infrastructural facilities, outdated mental health legislation, and inadequate or inappropriate training. Amongst the mental illnesses common in Africa: mental disorders and neurological diseases, behaviour that is damaging to health, such as alcohol and drug abuse, tobacco dependence, and violence, and somatic symptoms resulting from psychosocial distress. Many patients with mental or psychological problems are not diagnosed correctly and consequently are never properly treated. There is an urgent need to integrate mental health into general health services including primary health care. The author outlines general principles which must be kept in mind in developing mental health programmes for the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the tasks that health workers at various levels can carry out, the need for supervision, monitoring and evaluation, research, and coordination, and the importance of technical cooperation among African countries. Bibliogr., sum. in English and French. |