Mental health research

Promotion of mental health and prevention of mental illness are important components of all clinical services at the Women’s. Staff from diverse areas of the hospital are involved in multidisciplinary mental health research.

Mental health is not simply the absence of mental illness, but is a state of emotional and social wellbeing in which the individual can cope with the normal stresses of life and achieve his or her potential (World Health Organisation, 1999). The determinants of mental health and mental illness include biological, psychological, social, environmental and economic factors at several levels including individual, family, community, national and global.

Mental health issues vary across the lifespan from infancy to old age, across diverse groups within the population, and are strongly linked with physical health status. Increasingly, gender has been recognized as an important determinant of mental health.