Promotional Plan for Mental Health in Qatar

Running head: PROMOTIONAL PLAN FOR MENTAL HEALTH IN QATAR
PROMOTIONAL PLAN FOR MENTAL HEALTH IN QATAR
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Author’s Note:

1PROMOTIONAL PLAN FOR MENTAL HEALTH IN QATAR
The aim of this report is to provide a detailed promotional plan for an area of mental
health in the State of Qatar. To achieve that a problem area in the mental health sector in
Qatar has been identified for this promotional plan. A promotional plan will be delivered
accordingly and identification of the fore mentioned mental health problem, its description,
and solution, designing and planning of the promotional plan and evaluation of the said
promotional plan and expected outcomes will be discussed in detailed in the following
sections.
Identification of problem, description, and solution:
In the previous assessment it has been established that the mental health has become a
significant global burden on the world’s global health care sector. It has also increased the
financial burden on the health care sector. In the today’s world, almost one out of three
people have suffered some kind of mental disorder at any point of their life and the most
common mental disorders are anxiety and depression (Vigo, Thornicroft and Atun 2016).
Qatar is no exception to this problem and recent studies have shown that the mental health
problems have been progressively increasing in the State of Qatar. The state of Qatar has
taken few steps to counter the scenario to provide better mental health care support to its
citizens. The state of Qatar has legalized a new bill regarding the mental health in recent
years (Bener et al. 2015). It has been found that almost 18 per cent people in the age bracket
of 18 to 65 year old have been suffering from anxiety or depression (Phs.moph.gov.qa 2019).
It has been found out that the lack of awareness and ignorance is one of the key reason behind
this high prevalence and incidence rate. Another major reason is social stigma and peer
pressure. Most of the social stigma are incorrect and based on false evidence or without any
evidence at all. Therefore, there is an urgent need for health promotion among the people in
Qatar as early detection and awareness regarding mental health can help to avoid mental
illness. Young and adult people in the State of Qatar are the primary sufferer of the mental

2PROMOTIONAL PLAN FOR MENTAL HEALTH IN QATAR
illness like depression and anxiety. Henceforth, this mental health promotion plan will be
targeted to the young and adult population of the State of Qatar and the identified problem for
this article is mental illness amongst the young and adult population in the State of Qatar.
As mentioned in the above paragraph, young and adult people in the State of Qatar is
contributes to the major portion of the mental illness patient in the State of Qatar. Current
lifestyle and increasing demand for success has put too much pressure among the young and
adult people in the State of Qatar. Most of them are unaware that they are suffering from the
mental disorder. According to the Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Mental Health
Services, almost 10 to 15 per cent people are left untreated who are suffering from mental
disorder like depression (Hamad.qa 2019). Additionally, young and adult people who are
suffering from mental disorders are unwilling to seek medical assistance due to the social
stigma and peer pressure. This adds to the pile of mental problems already present in the
State of Qatar. Social stigma can only be eradicated through awareness program and people
will be aware that it is a legitimate health disorder and there is no shame in it to acknowledge
and getting treated for mental disorders (Zolezzi et al. 2018). Furthermore, a high number of
migrant worker have come to the State of Qatar every year for work. It has also been noted
that high number of individuals amongst them suffers from mental health. Due to financial
conditioning they are not able to get treated for mental disorder and most of them are not
even aware of the presence of mental disorder (Bener 2017). Therefore, a proper and
adequate promotional plan will be helpful to them to gather information related to the mental
disorder which might prevent them from succumbing in to mental disorder like anxiety and
depression and even if they do, they will be aware that treatment available for mental
disorders like this. Hence, to tackle this progressively increasing mental illness among young
and adult populace in the State of Qatar, a mental health promotional plan will be planned to

3PROMOTIONAL PLAN FOR MENTAL HEALTH IN QATAR
reduce the prevalence, incidence, and casualty of mental illness targeted to the young and
adult people in the State of Qatar.
To promote this health plan successfully, this promotional plan will be conducted in
two phase namely short term and long term phase. Short term part of this promotional plan
will be completed within first month and the long term promotional plan will be conducted
for six months. Under short term promotional plan, the activities like direct participation
programs, awareness program, social marketing and communication and community
strengthening whereas under long term promotional plan workforce development, policy and
legislative reform and monitoring, research and evaluation will be conducted. In case of
direct participation programs, activities like screening camp, medical camp, and seminar will
be conducted (Who.int 2019). Community strengthening will be conducted by collaboratively
organising these fore mentioned activities with the help community as well as to start a new
promotional campaign in the social medial. The long term will be rolled out for the first six
months and the continuation of this promotional plan will be depended on evaluation at the
end of the six months.
Design and planning of the promotional plan:
In this section, detailed plan design of this mental health promotional plan will be
provided. In order achieve that detail description of the aim, objectives, target group, settings
for this target group, promotional method, underpinning theory, resources required, time
frame and budget plan of this promotional plan will be provided in the below sections.
Aim and objectives:
The aim of this mental health promotional plan is to raise awareness amongst young-
adult populace in regards to mental illness and health, provide better mental health care