Access to Mental Health Care in Bangladesh—Current Status, Potential Challenges, and Ways Out

Bangladesh is an emerging economy in South Asia with the potential double burden of both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Mental illness is one of the top fifth burdensome non-communicable diseases in the country. Historically, there is more than 90% of services gaps for mental health disorders. This chapter aims to discuss the current status, potential challenges, and ways out of mental health care access in Bangladesh. In the beginning, we discussed the historical aspect of mental health services in Bangladesh followed by a discussion on the epidemiology and services burden in the country. We discussed the potential challenges of access to mental health care like poor funds and inadequate research, inadequate and inequitable manpower, huge out-of-pocket expenses, poor mental health literacy, low income and income disparity, high stigma, enduring disorganized help-seeking patterns, non-judicious prescribing (poly-pharmacy) as the potential challenges. Finally, we speculated on the potential ways to cope with the challenges for better mental health care in Bangladesh.