The National Assembly must open this Wednesday a “debate on the evolution of mental health in the context of the health crisis and the responses to it by public policies”, at the request of the socialist group. Because since the health crisis and the first confinement, the mental health of the French has declined.
A decline that is felt first in the consumption of psychotropic drugs, which increased during the Covid-19 pandemic and the first confinements. “The sickest and most isolated, those who could not access their treatment, saw their condition worsen dramatically. And there was an increase in psychotropic drugs. During the first confinements, we stored pasta and other basic necessities, but also antidepressants”, assures this Monday on RMC Michel Lejoyeux, professor of psychiatry at the University of Paris, who evokes a “new disorder of the mind”.
And the numbers don’t lie. According to a survey of Public Health France, published on December 23, 2021, 18% of French people would show signs of depressive disorders and 23% an anxious state, i.e. respectively 8 and 9 points more than before the epidemic.
Other addictions have also increased. “The ‘zoom aperitifs’ also hurt us a lot. We had to hold on during confinement but while drinking alcohol”, adds the professor, who today sees the consequences on the youngest and most isolated, but who refuses to call for a “collective epidemic where we should all be sick”. “We just have to remain more vigilant about those most in difficulty, vis-à-vis the one who is the youngest and does not have access to work or care”, pleads Michel Lejoyeux.
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“We have all the difficulties of the outpatient clinic and the hospital”
A deterioration of mental health coupled with the difficulties inherent in France, where the mental health sector is sometimes seen as “the poor relation” of health. “The profession is a bit knocked out. We have all the difficulties of outpatients and hospitals: closed beds, demographics and attractiveness. And in addition, we have considerable social pressure”, laments Michel Lejoyeux, evoking the serial escapes from several psychiatric services in Toulouse over the past ten days.
“We felt that our caregivers and our patients were not understood. These runaways are of course a problem, but our patients are more victims than perpetrators of violence. Our patients are misunderstood and not recognized. We must get out of the caricatures. We don’t want to see them and we consider them incurable”, laments the professor who evokes “treatments that work”.
To get out of the psychiatric doldrums, he asks the presidential candidates “not to forget the essentials”. “We have a device, private, public or ambulatory, in pain, we do not want gadgets, we want support from caregivers on a daily basis. We must work with nurses and psychologists in a network”, assures Michel Lejoyeux.
If we are to believe figures from Public Health France, there is an urgent need to act, while 10% of French people say they have had suicidal thoughts during the year, i.e. +5 points compared to the level outside the epidemic. At the same time, 80% of French people say they have a positive perception of their life in general, a low level, 5 points below the level outside the epidemic.
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