Sports meetings, conferences, concerts… from March 14 to 21, the International Days of Schizophrenia are held in nine countries, including France. The objective is to inform the general public, but above all to break the stigma around the disease, explains the president of the association behind these events.
- A week of information on the disease begins today March 14
- People with schizophrenia are often stigmatized
- 30% of people affected by this disease would not be treated
“We must know someone who suffers from schizophrenia in our entourage”. Globally, schizophrenia affects one in every hundred people. Yet it remains one of the most stigmatized diseases. However, the hurtful clichés about the sick represent one of the main obstacles to access to early care today. Currently, 30% of people with schizophrenia are not treated at all. In order to de-dramatize this disease and to combat received ideas about patients, who are not dangerous psychopaths, the association International Schizophrenia Days organizes information days each year through numerous events, ranging from conferences to exhibitions, concerts and sporting events. On the occasion of the 17and edition of the Days held this year from March 14 to 21 in nine countries, including France, Why doctor went to meet the president of the association, Jean-Christophe Leroy.
Jean-Christophe Leroy has been involved in this cause for more than twenty years. “At the end of the 1990s, when I met my wife, she already had grown children. One of them seemed strange to me. It turned out that he was suffering from the first symptoms of schizophrenia. Then, after a few months of going back and forth to the hospital, he stopped talking for ten years. We then began to make contact with many other families and patients. We discussed the disease, what they felt. We discovered how many actors were taken aback by this affliction. We therefore decided to create the Schizophrenia Days in Switzerland, an association of relatives with the aim of destigmatizing the disease. We were quickly joined by hospitals and other associations, and this event has become very important in the country.”, says Jean-Christophe Leroy. Building on this success, the association decided to internationalize the movement three years ago.
Prevent and act against stigma
Today, the International Days of Schizophrenia association has 250 partners (mental health, cultural, sports associations, hospitals, concert organizers, etc.) and 600 volunteers, at work in the nine countries where Many events will take place this year. “The whole of these days is built around three axes. We organize conferences, open houses and online meetings for those concerned. We also have an axis around information for the general public with a lot of stands in shopping malls, that stirs up a lot of people. Then there are events. This year, an American football match was organized in Grenoble, several choirs were planned in Evian, a dance show in Namur. Unfortunately because of the coronavirus, we had to cancel about fifty events at the last minute…”laments Leroy.
“If you are a mental health association and you organize something yourself, the people who will come are already familiar with the disease. When you are a partner in a rugby match, people come for the sport and you can pick them up to talk to them about a mental illness that many have already heard of. Some are even concerned but do not dare to seek information. This makes it possible both to do prevention and to act against stigmatization because the population often takes a distorted view of what has been seen in fiction. However, this does not reflect the reality of most patients”he explains.
“Recovering from schizophrenia is no longer a fiction”
“Our main message is that recovering from schizophrenia is no longer fiction. Well cared for people recover. When you have diabetes, you take lifelong treatment too. I know people who are very well recovered, who have a tiny dose of drug treatment but who continue to be followed, to do mindfulness exercises and who organize their lives according to their fragility. That’s what’s sad: today, the disease can be well monitored but unfortunately it is not available to the whole population”points out Jean-Christophe Leroy.
In France, care is still a sensitive point. “At the international level, we are working a lot on early support: how to get a patient to collaborate in his care. There are places where it works very well in Europe, especially in Lausanne where the process is really very fast. Here, many of these practices remain unknown, even to professionals, even though they are not necessarily difficult or expensive to deploy”explains Jean-Christophe Leroy who also wants to take advantage of the organization of these days to inform people of the progress of research.
Finally, beyond the events organized next week, International Schizophrenia Days has set up an online information campaign. This year, the association also created episode zero of Schizo, the first scientific web series inspired by real events and endorsed by a committee of experts in schizophrenia. The goal is to explain the symptoms of patients to the general public. “We hope to be able to make the sequel but for that, we need money”, concludes Jean-Christophe Leroy.
Watch the Schizo trailer below:
.