ผู้วิจัย/Authors: Yongyud Wongpiromsan, Apichai Mongkol, Wallapa van Willenwaard, Hans van Willenwaard.

ชื่อเรื่อง/Title: Mental Health and Gross National Happiness.

แหล่งที่มา/Source: ASEAN Journal of Psychiatry. Vol. 9, Supplement 1, 26-29 August 2008, page 32-33.

รายละเอียด / Details:

GNH concept was first introduces by the former king of Bhutan and has continued to the unique philosophy for the country development. GNH is interpreted as a blend of material and spiritual well being for the people who live in close harmony with the environment. To achieve GNH, Bhutan has developed strategies in clouding human development, culture and heritage, balanced and equitable socioeconomic development, governance and environmental sustainable development. GNH concept challenges GDP-driven economic growth that dominates development and results in unbalanced economic globalization. In Thailand GNH had become the national agenda since 2006. In 2007 it achieved as indicators composed of 6 elements namely: well being (physical, mental and wisdom), happy family, equitable and strong economy, democracy and good governance, good environment as well as health community. To measure the mental health, suicidal rate is used as the indicator. However the Thai Department of Mental Health (DMH) considered that there should be the other positive indicator for mental health. In 2007, Thailand hosted the third International Conference on GNH and there were a large amount of progress both national and local happiness and well being indicators. GMH was realized the importance and need of developing Thai mental health indicator to investigate the mental health of Thai people. In 2000, Thai Mental Health Indicator (TMHI) in individual level was developed to study the country-wide mental health of Thai people and to examine the change of mental health or well being of Thai people. There are 4 domains on TMHI including mental state, mental capacity, mental quality and supporting factors. The mental health indicator is a worthy and useful instrument, especially to investigate the countrywide happiness of Thai people in 2005 and 2007. It is planned to measure every year from now on. Since Thai Gross National Happiness (GNH) with six components has developed, it be comes the measure of country development. In the component of well being, indicator for mental health or psychological happiness is very crucial especially the measure on positive aspect of mental health. As the Department of Mental Health (DMH) developed the “Thai Mental Health Indicator” (TMHI) 8 year ago, this instrument was reviewed and retooled to fit in the new concept of Thai GNH, focusing on mental quality and capacity. The Mental Quality and capacity Instrument (MQCI) have 30 items with 15 items in each domain of mental quality and capacity. The mental quality have 4 factors of kindness and altruism, self esteem, faith, creative thinking and enthusiasm with 6,3,3,3 items respectively; while the mental capacity also have 4 factors of interpersonal relationship, expectation a achievements congruence, confidence in coping, adequate mental mastery with 3,3,5,4 items respectively. The result of assessment in 2003 and 2007 will be compared and discussed in the presentation.

Keywords: mental health, gross national happiness

ปีที่เผยแพร่/Year: 2008

Address: Department of Mental Health, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand

Code: 201000010

ISSN/ISBN: 0218-3420

Country of publication: Thailand

Language: English

Category: Abstract

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