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Studies of mental health specific to the Philippines Studies about mental health in the Philippines are limited in contemporary times. They address the natural disasters happening in the country, like the supertyphoons Yolanda and Ondoy. Another trend involves Filipina migrant workers and their displaced populations, as well as children in the lower socioeconomic classes who may or may not possess mental disorders or impairments.

Victims of calamity

Ondoy

To address the psychosocial concerns of the typhoon victims during Ondoy, a task force on Mental Health Psycho-Social Support (MHPSS) was formed headed by the Health Emergencies Management Staff of the Department of Health (DOH) as chair and lead agency based on Memorandum 15 series of 2008 issued by the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), and the DSWD as co-chair.

The members of the Task Force come from national government agencies (NGAs), academe, non-government organizations and faith-based private sectors, with mental health and psycho-social support programs. Some of the members of the MHPSS Task Force visited the children in evacuation centers in Marikina, Philippine Sports Arena (formerly ULTRA) and Bagong Silangan. The children listened to Bible stories told by the volunteers, learned songs and played games. Likewise, the volunteers encouraged the children to play with toys and draw pictures of their experiences. According to Secretary Esperanza I. Cabral, the MHPSS Task Force conducted psychosocial training and orientation, psychosocial and psycho/spiritual processing, and critical incident stress debriefing to some 8,770 adult-victims of typhoon 'Ondoy' who were in evacuation centers, as well as play therapy sessions with 3,075 children-victims and 704 service providers and disaster relief workers.

Yolanda The World Health Organization (WHO) based in the Philippines has been training local health workers in psychological first aid community-based mental health care for addressing mental health needs. One of the latest cases include the rehabilitation after the typhoon Yolanda. Health problems still emerged months after the disaster situations. At the presence of a safe place, there would be the experiences of headache and insomnia. There is usually an increase of people reporting with mental health problems 3-6 months after a disaster. The reasons cited for this increase included the trauma caused by the typhoon and also the washed out medications from those who already had mental health problems, whose none maintenance caused relapse.

Filipina migrant workers

As of 2008, Filipino women (Filipinas) account for around 50 percent of the migrant workers. In 2009, about forty percent of the Filipinas who migrated were household service workers. Filipina domestic workers are most especially vulnerable to abusive working conditions because of their work's live-in nature.

In a study published in 2011, interviewing 500 domestic workers who worked abroad about 55% experienced stress during their time abroad, with more than half also vulnerable to psycho-emotional symptoms during their stay abroad. Accordingly, the number of psycho-emotional symptoms decreased while in the Philippines compared to when they were abroad. It was the same trend among the psychological manifestations of stress. Only three percent sought the help of a mental health professional, with the majority opting to talk to a pastor instead about their psycho-social symptoms.

Displaced populations

Amerasians

Amerasians are children abandoned as babies and children of American military personnel from militarily occupied nation-states. As of 2012-2013, about 200,000-250,000 of military Amerasians are currently residing in the country. Amerasians in the present is a recognizable marginal group, In 2011, the DSWD secretary Corazon Soliman admitted that the nation’s top federal welfare agency was no longer providing special assistance or attention to the Amerasians. In addition, many traditional NGO’s (The Philippine Children’s Fund of America, the Pearls S. Buck Foundation, Preda, Inc.) has reduced or phased out Amerasian aid programs or have moved on to servicing current humanitarian needs. Insofar, a study was given to more than 50,000 military Amerasian children from Central Luzon for interventions given the traits of depression, elevated anxiety, joblessness, social isolation, substance and alcohol abuse, and housing insecurity.

Mindanao refugees

A study was conducted to conduct a model of mental health care that integrates mental health into primary care for displaced civilians in Mindanao. The forty year episodes of violence led to civilian displacement in that community. It showed that simple mental health approaches such as psychological first aid and brief psychotherapy can be integrated into primary health care. Additionally, brief psychotherapy sessions provided at primary level to patients with common mental disorders can potentially improve patients' symptoms of distress, within a few sessions based from the retrospective analysis of patient data.

Filipino children

Based on the WHO collaborative study on strategies for mental health care, 238 children from Sampaloc. Manila were screened in the clinic. A total of 68 children were tested positive with a mental illness, where 68 children (14%) possessed a psychiatric syndrome and 5 children (two percent) were intellectually impaired. 36 of the children (15%) possessed both a psychiatric syndrome and mental retardation. Between 12%-29% of children are diagnosed with mental health problems while entering primary health care.