A resident Psychiatrist at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital Dr E. A Azusong has stated that women are more susceptible to mental illnesses than their male counterparts, due to their biological makeup.

"Women are more prone because of their biological nature, and the fact that they go through changes in their hormones, oestrogen and all of that. It makes them have a higher predisposition to being depressed."

Speaking on Joy FM's Super Morning Show Monday, Dr Azusong said the frequent hormonal changes result in mood swings which then affect their mental state.

He revealed that records at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital and other mental health institutions show that women tend to seek help at mental health facilities than men.

"Women are more likely to seek help. Once there is a little challenge or a little problem, the women are more likely to come to the hospital to seek help than the men," he stressed.

Due to the cultural upbringing of men, Dr Azusong said men tend to harbour their pain and thus do not easily seek help as compared to women.

He further intimated that men are more likely to use aggressive means in committing suicide, as compared to women who tend to have frequent suicidal attempts.

According to him, due to the aggressive nature of men in committing suicide, men are more likely to complete their suicidal acts than women.

"We tend to see that more in the women. Because women most of the time, they would be afraid to use lethal means, and they would want to try it, but then they do not have that vigour and vim to undertake it".

"With regards to depression in particular, once you keep in the anger, once you keep in the sadness, once you keep in the fatigue, it would definitely explode at a time. That is why we tend to receive a higher incidence of suicide cases among men".

https://youtu.be/jpBPHm9stIY

On the same show, The Chief Executive Officer of The Brain and Mind Hospital, Dr Yao Mfodwo noted that mental illness should not be associated only with being mentally disturbed as is commonly known.

"When we talk about health needs, we measure the prevalence and incidence of an illness in the population. There’s depression, Schizophrenia, sexual disorders, Attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mood disorders. It’s a whole range of illnesses. It’s not just one lump of things," Dr Mfodwo told hosts Mamavi Owusu-Aboagye and Kojo Yankson.