MANILA, Philippines ? As many as three out of 10 government employees have mental health problems, according to a 2007 survey.

The most common mental disorder found were depression and anxiety disorder, which require professional intervention, said Dr. Edgardo Tolentino Jr. of the Philippine Psychiatric Association (PPA).

?Surprisingly, as much as 30 percent of the respondents were found to have mental health problems. One or two were even possibly suicidal,? Tolentino, who practices at Makati Medical Center, said Tuesday at a forum organized by the Philippine College of Physicians.

The survey, an initiative of the Department of Health, covered the employees of major government departments based in the National Capital Region.

It used the diagnostic tool Composite International Diagnostic Interview, which is recommended by the World Health Organization and the American Psychiatric Association, to get a picture of the mental health of Filipino government workers, Tolentino said.
?We think that people are just normal, but they are actually harboring mental health problems that can be picked up by a diagnostic tool,? he said.

The PPA is lobbying Congress to pass a mental health bill to strengthen and institutionalize services for mental healthcare.

Chemical imbalance

According to Tolentino, depression is not the same as sadness caused by the loss of or separation from a loved one.

?Depression is an illness triggered even without any loss or separation, [but by] brain chemical imbalance. It has to be treated because of the danger of suicide. So we help nonpsychiatrists detect this,? he said.

Tolentino said a nationwide survey was being planned to get a bigger picture of the mental health of Filipinos.

Dr. Tante Delia of the PPA, who practices at Philippine General Hospital, said the survey findings jibed with the findings made more than a decade ago by the late Dr. Antonio Perlas, one of the country?s leading practitioners of mental healthcare.

Perlas? 1994 survey, conducted in communities in Region VI (Western Visayas) with 3,000 respondents, showed that 14.3 percent or nearly two out of 10 persons suffered from a range of anxiety disorders including panic, phobia and general depression.

?They needed professional help, medication or psychotherapy,? Delia said.

?Life-saving? diagnosis

Among the findings of the 2007 survey were that those afflicted with mental problems had less formal education and were in difficult family situations, Tolentino said.

He said mental health problems might arise ?the more stressors you have, and if you don?t have enough resources to deal with the problem.?

Tolentino said diagnosing mental disorder was of ?life-saving? importance.

He said that in some celebrated cases of suicide, the ?psychological autopsy? revealed that the suicidal person had shown a number of warning signs that were unfortunately undetected.

He cited a case where the suicidal person not only left a suicide note but also gave his automated teller machine number to his staff to give to his family after his death.

?There were a lot of signs but the people around them didn?t detect that there was depression. It?s life-saving to detect depression. It?s preventable; there?s something we can do to prevent it,? he said.

An ?anxious people?

Tolentino said there was an increasing number of people suffering from anxiety attacks.

?Over the past 10 years, there has been a high incidence of anxiety among Filipinos. We are an anxious people,? he observed.

But he also noted that Filipinos used humor as a coping mechanism during times of disaster and national upheavals.

?Is it good or bad? It could be good. But the mature way of coping is if we can use it to find a solution,? he said.