Key Facts

A health feature in The Indian Express highlights that obsessive-compulsive disorder is not a preference for tidiness but a condition that causes significant distress, with obsessions being intrusive thoughts or urges and compulsions being repetitive actions or mental rituals. Stigma and limited access to specialised therapy often delay diagnosis, and the disorder can disrupt education, relationships and work. Treatment may combine psychological therapy and medication when clinically needed, and exposure and response prevention is an evidence-based behavioural therapy that helps people tolerate triggers without performing the compulsion.

GK Context

The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 recognises mental healthcare as a right, requires insurers to cover mental illness on par with physical illness and, with Section 115, presumes severe stress in attempted suicide and limits its prosecution. The National Mental Health Programme was launched in 1982 with the District Mental Health Programme added in 1996, and the government runs the Tele-MANAS helpline launched in 2022. Mental health is a part of the broader public health goals under SDG 3.