THE word ‘profile’ may not be unfamiliar to many. When used, it refers to personalities.
Profiles carry information about a person’s life, work, character, behaviour and hobbies.
In our attempt to describe somebody, we will gather as much information of the person as possible.
This is profiling. Profiling is a scientific activity — the recording and analysing of people’s psychological and behavioural tendencies, preferences and characteristics to get a better description of how they function and how likely they would function in the future, based on their psychological characteristics and traits.
As a scientific activity and inquiry, profiling does not depend on assumptions or stereotypes of people’s behaviour and character to base judgment on them.
Adhering to an empirical principle like this helps us avoid misperceptions of people.
When it comes to mental health profiling, we accumulate and gather as much information as possible of people, and we thoroughly and as objectively as possible measure their mental health stability and psychological functioning, through the use of standard and empirical psychological assessment tools.
Qualifications for providing profiling services can be obtained only through professional training from recognised institutions.
It is not uncommon to do profiling in the mental health service sector.
This service has been doing well in developed countries. There’s nothing to be worried about when it comes to implementing it in other countries.
The goal of profiling is to recognise the education and healthcare that people need to help them contribute to society and to help service providers deliver services correctly to people in need.
Information obtained from profiling helps us promulgate better mental health policies.
In Malaysia, adopting the assessment approach to determine the status or mental health functioning of people is yet to be considered important.
It is not a requirement either at the departmental level in any ministry or in any private sector agency.
Only the Psychology Services Division of the Public Service Department, as the body that runs psychological assessments for its workers, uses tests that measure attitudes, emotional stability and personality.
The tests provide information that determine the level of mental wellbeing of people, hence, helping in collecting data for screening and diagnostic purposes, and thus, profiling them to get the whole picture of their psychological functioning.
As Malaysia has the largest number of civil servants compared with its Southeast Asian neighbours, with 70 per cent of them being secondary school graduates or those who have never attended tertiary education, it seems that in terms of the distribution of mental illnesses, this group constitutes the largest group at risk of mental illness, compared with those with higher qualifications.
Another kind of profiling involves understanding what factors make a certain group of people more vulnerable to developing mental health problems.
However, such information cannot be collected until mental health screening is considered important.
Mental health problems — such as suicide, rage, depression, anxiety and drug withdrawal symptoms — are on the rise.
They may go unresolved if the problems are not detected early.
Mental health assessment tests and tools aim to assess or identify the status and capabilities of people’s psychological functioning, including emotion, thought, neurocognitive function, personality and behavioural tendencies.
The tests have strong clinical standards that can be used not only for screening, but also in diagnosing mental disorders.
Though more focused on hospital settings, clinics and health centres, its use has no limits
In fact, the tests should be more accessible to others in addition to professionals.
Mental health centres and clinics are expected to realise the goal of getting more people to get mental health checks.
The first step to mental health profiling is to have mental health screening and diagnostic tools and instruments available, and getting checked by qualified mental health personnel.
Khairul Azhar Idris
Fellow, Institut Kemajuan Islam Malaysia