OREANDA-NEWS In Russia, about 4 million people suffer from mental disorders, said Svetlana Shport, Director General of the NMC of Psychiatry and Narcology named after the Serbian Ministry of Health of Russia, chief freelance psychiatrist at the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation.

"In the Russian Federation, the number of people suffering from mental disorders does not reach 4 million. These are all mental illnesses. Two thirds of them are disorders, including depression, anxiety disorders and other disorders that we pay attention to," Shport said at the Future Technologies Forum.

According to her, 970 million people worldwide suffer from mental illness. Moreover, this does not include those who have mental disorders after suffering from coronavirus. About 300 million are people with anxiety disorders and 280 million with depressive disorders. Schizophrenia affects 24 million people worldwide.

Shport reported that 58 million children in the world suffer from anxiety disorders and about 23 million suffer from depressive disorders.

In addition, it became known that people with a history of depressive disorders are at risk for developing dementia.

In November 2023, the first Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation, Olga Batalina, reported that 163 thousand people (including children) live in Russian boarding schools and institutions where departments for people suffering from mental disorders have been established.

She clarified that there are 687 boarding houses in the Russian Federation for citizens with mental disorders and boarding schools in which special departments are open. Of these, 111 institutions are for children and 576 for adults. At the same time, there are no such institutions in three regions - Sevastopol, the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the deputy minister noted.