(Photo : Psychiatry tag cloud)

The National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) has released on Monday a document that outlines a government plan to create a national database of patients suffering from serious mental illness.

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The document issued by NHFPC specifically identifies patients who are suffering mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, persistent delusional behavior, and paranioa schizophrenia, said a report from the state-owned Xinhua News Agency.

The said mental illnesses were identified as severe mental disturbance based on the first Mental Health Law that took effect in China last May.

Monitoring and Treatment

The purpose of the national database is to strictly monitor the said patients in order for them to gain better medical treatment and to keep them from harming others.

The NHFPC assured that the personal information in the national database will be strictly protected and the sharing of information will be prohibited unless the law requires.

The document stipulated that doctors who conduct examination of patients suffering from serious mental illness should immediately file a report to the hospital after diagnosis. It will be the hospital's job to input the patient's information to the database or submit a report to a country-level prevention and treatment agency.

Guided Treatment and Rehabilitation

All these procedures must be done within 10 days after the patient has been discharged from the medical facility, the document said. The address of the patient's must also be recorded so that physicians can regularly check the patient and guide treatment and rehabilitation.

A health official said monitoring the mentally-ill patients at an early stage can help treat or rehabilitate the patients. Otherwise, their condition could get worse and they could soon start harming other people.

Based on the statistics from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 100 million people in China who have some form of mental illnesses in 2009. At least 16 million of the figure is suffering severe mental illnesses and need government intervention to ensure monitoring and treatment.