Kampala — ONE group that is particularly vulnerable to distress caused by emotional abuse and name-calling is people with mental health problems. Worldwide mental ill-health is stigmatised.

People with relatively minor mental health problems (e.g. anxiety and depression) - not normally viewed as minor by those enduring them - are often castigated as the 'worried well'. People with a severe mental illness (e.g. paranoid schizophrenia) are at best treated with neglect and derision, at worse fear and violence.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the most visible and disturbing examples of people with severe mental health problems are all too often found walking the streets of capital cities. Dishevelled in appearance, ambling between the oncoming traffic, with no apparent awareness of the threats to their own well-being, they represent the caricature of the 'mentally ill'.

Across the continent, the stigmatisation of mental illness in part arises from the commonly held belief that the affected person is possessed by evil spirits, a possession that can only be exorcised by traditional healers.

The 'treatment' such healers provide sometimes amounts to no more than shackling the person to a wall in a darkened room, or using interventions that not only have no supportive evidence base but which simply prey on the ignorance and desperation of the family of the affected.

This consequence of such stigma can be lamentable. In developed countries, stigma often results in discrimination at work, in health care and education.

In Africa, the repercussions can be even more significant: social ostracism that exacerbates their exclusion from everyday society. An important source of such stigma is the mass media.

For example, on November 7, 2005 New Vision ran a brief news story entitled 'Lunatic held'. The story said the army had arrested 'an unidentified lunatic' at Ojwii camp for internally displaced people in Otwal sub-county on suspicion of poisoning to death an Amuka militiaman.

The term 'lunatic' is one of a number of pejorative terms used to describe people with mental health problems; others include 'mad', 'crazy', and 'psycho'. The print media are not alone in this respect.

On television, fictional characters portrayed in soap stories are commonly shown as aggressive, dangerous and unpredictable. Such negative depictions perpetuate the erroneous image of the 'mentally ill' among the general public.

Mental health issues in Uganda should receive the sensitive media coverage that other issues are given. When someone develops cancer or HIV/AIDS, we neither ridicule their condition nor treat them with indifference or hostility.

Why should people with a mental health problem be treated differently? There is an underlying humanity in both situations that needs to be accorded support and care.

Current media representations of mental ill-health serve only to reinforce existing prejudices. Eradicating the stigma associated with mental ill-health in part means addressing the current inadequacies in media coverage.

As a key stakeholder of any truly inclusive society, the media have a duty to represent mental ill-health in a non-emotive and responsible way that accords the issue the balanced and informed treatment it needs and deserves.

To rephrase the words of Dr Fred Kigozi, director of Butabika Hospital, quoted in The New Vision two days after the 'lunatic' report, people with mental health problems have rights and deserve respect from the public and the media. Without those rights and respect, the name-calling will continue to hurt.

The writer is an independent health researcher