I In developing health care services, third world countries often face the choice between furnishing high-technology medical services and preventing the major causes of disease by means of a public health system. Iran and China represent the two poles of this dilemma. Iran developed a system of health care based on Western technology which emphasized service to the elite and the army, whereas the People's Republic of China dcalt with the preventive health needs.of its whole populace.Within the health services there is the further problem of how to manage the nedds of the mentally ill. In developing countries, psychiatric treatment often receives a very , low priority in spite of the prevalence of severe mental disorder. Iran and China havẽ approached this issue differently as well. In this paper we contrast the development of their health and psychiatric services. Our interest in medical anthropology, and a reasonable degree of personal contact with both countries, have aided us in this task. We trust that such a comparative study will be of use ot scholars and others working with developing countries engaged in the provision of psychiatric services. PSYCHIATRY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES !In implementing health services in third world countries the first priority is usually given to the &dquo;killing&dquo; diseases (e.g. tuberculosis, malaria, smallpox), basic hygiene and nutrition. (6) The next priority is generally assigned to the prevention of debilitating diseases, and the third priority (attention to the quality of life) is approached after the life expectation has been increased. (I1) Psychiatric treatment often falls into this third category, which is somewhat surprising considering the degree of disability directly attributable to major mental disorders.The incidence of psychosis is generally similar in developing countries and western nations. There is often a high prevalence of neurosis and psychosomatic disorders among rural and non-literate people. These disorders seem to increase in frequency among those rural dwellers who move to cities. (I4).Despite the frequency of mental illness, developing countries often have poor facilities for the their treatment. The conditions in mental hospitals may actually be more miserable than in the jails. Where change has occurred, the initiative has often come from the departments of psychiatry in universities or general hospitals rather than from the traditional mental hospitals. IRAN AND CHINABoth Iran and China can be classified as developing countries since their economies are largely agricultural and there is a significant shift of population-from rural to urban area. In both countries there has been an effort to industrialize the economic system. They have had their political problems, including revolutions, and experiments with various governmental systems, and these are frequently the subject of wide media exposure in the western world.Iran has more than thirty-five million people, of whom aboaut 55% live in villages There are an estimated 68,00 villages, 35% o...
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