Numerous Russians succumb to alcohol, drugs and suicide

Mental disorders on upgrade in Russia

The incidence of mental disorders in Russia has gone up 1.5 times in the past ten years. 300 out of every 100,000 people are mentally deranged in one way or another. The corresponding figure ten years ago was 200.

According to Dr. Tatiana Dmitriyeva, Director of the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry, children and teenagers are in the worst situation: the incidence of mental disease among them has gone up 2.5 times in the past ten years.

The rise is directly linked to drug abuse, toxomania, alcoholism and the suicidal syndrome.

The number of drug abusers went up by 12 times from 1991 to 2000. The incidence of alcohol-induced psychosis has gone up by four times. The most appalling fact, Dr. Dmitriyeva says, is that all those pathologies are rapidly "getting younger." Whereas the number of drug-takers among adults has grown eight time in the past ten years, the corresponding figure for teenagers is 18 times.

Suicides are most common among people after twenty years of age but the incidence of suicide among children of five to nine years of age has doubled in the past ten years.

The incidence of alcohol-induced psychosis among teenagers has trebled in the past ten years, with the percentage of children and teenagers indulging in drug abuse going up from five to 26 percent.