Mental health in China

Missionary and doctor John G. Kerr opened the first psychiatric hospital in 1898, with the goal of providing care to people with mental health issues, and treating them in a more humane way.

In 2011, the legal institution of China's State Council published a draft for a new mental health law, which includes new regulations concerning the rights of patients to not to be hospitalized against their will.

In 2007, the Chief of China's National Centre for Mental Health, Liu Jin, estimated that approximately 50 percent of outpatient admissions were due to depression.

[15] Another 22 percent of the population, roughly 294 million, people believe in folk religions[15] which are a group of beliefs that share characteristics with Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and shamanism.

Followers of these religions perceive behavior as being tightly connected with health; illnesses are often thought to be a result of moral failure or insufficiently honoring one's family in current or past life.

It is believed that mental health will hinder individuals from achieving the standards and goals- whether academic, social, career-based, or other- expected from parents.

For example, in the United States, it is estimated that about twenty-five percent of active military members suffer from a mental health problem, such as PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury, and depression.

[29] Research on the mental health status of active Chinese military men began in the 1980s where psychologists investigated soldiers' experiences in the plateaus.

Plateaus were an area of interest in this sense because of harsh environmental conditions and the necessity of the work done with low atmospheric pressure and intense UV radiation.

[32] It was critical to place the military there to stabilize the outskirts and protect the Chinese citizens who live nearby; this made it one of the most important jobs in the army, then increasing the pressure on those who worked in the plateaus.

It not only affected the body physically, like in the arteries, lungs, and back, but caused high levels of depression in soldiers because of being away from family members and with limited communication methods.

[30] Comparatively, assessing the mental health status of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is difficult, because military members work a diverse array of duties over a large landscape.

Military members also play an active part in disaster relief, peacekeeping in foreign lands, protecting borders, and domestic riot control.

The study measured levels of anxious behaviors, symptoms of depression, sensitivity to traumatic events, resilience and emotional intelligence of existing personnel to aid the screening of new recruits.

[29] Similar research has been conducted into the external factors that impact a person's mental fortitude, including single-child status, urban or rural environment, and education level.

In 2013 leak by the Tibetan Center for Human Rights of a small portion of the People's Liberation Army training manual from 2008, specifically concerned how military personnel could combat PTSD and depression while on peacekeeping missions in Tibet.

Analysis of more than 45 different studies, moreover, has deemed that the level of anxiety in current and ex-military personnel has increased despite efforts of the People's Republic due to economic conditions, lack of social connects and the feeling of a threat to military livelihood.

At the same time, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping promised to enact laws that protect the welfare of veterans.

[41] Perinatal depression, a mood disorder occurring during pregnancy and extending into the postpartum period, is linked with adverse health outcomes for both mothers and infants.

[42] A meta-regression analysis showed that there has been a notable upward trend in the prevalence of perinatal depression, which affects approximately 16.3% of Chinese women, with 19.7% experiencing it during pregnancy and 14.8% after childbirth.

Studies shows that lower socioeconomic status, compromised physical well-being, pregnancy-related anxiety, challenges during childbirth and inadequate social support posed negative impact to mental health of Chinese mothers.

[45] After the implementation of the universal two-child policy, another review article indicates that the second-time mothers exhibited a higher likelihood of experiencing anxiety symptoms during pregnancy compared to both prenatal women overall and the entire sample.