One in ten people worldwide suffer from mental disorders and as the Middle East is being gripped by conflict and war, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to hear that the region suffers the world’s highest depression rates. In addition to that Some evidences suggest that psychiatric disorders are hectically expanding within Middle Eastern communities and it’s costing people in the region years off their lives.
Sadly a large gap exists between the number of people needing treatment and the number of people receiving treatment for depression in the Middle East. Barriers to mental health care in the region have included the lack of education for primary health care providers about mental illnesses, the scarcity of trained mental health care specialists, the lack of resources in developing countries, and the stigmatization of mental illness in Middle Eastern cultures.
