Nigeria’s rapidly ageing population is facing a largely invisible crisis: unrecognized psychiatric distress among older adults. While global estimates suggest that up to 15% of seniors suffer from mental disorders, the burden is especially severe in Nigeria, where late-life depression often remains undiagnosed and untreated. This perspective explores two key barriers: pervasive cultural silence and systemic diagnostic gaps. Mental illness in older Nigerians is frequently misunderstood or framed as spiritual weakness, leading to stigma, concealment, and reluctance to seek professional help. Traditional beliefs, religious interpretations, and societal expectations of stoicism reinforce silence at individual and family levels. Even when elders engage with health services, their psychological symptoms are often missed by undertrained primary care workers or misattributed to aging or physical illness. Structural barriers including a scarcity of geriatric mental health professionals and poor integration of psychiatric care into routine services further limit diagnosis and treatment. Amid these challenges, this paper argues for urgent integration of mental health into primary care and geriatric services. Nigeria’s 2023 National Mental Health Act provides a policy foundation, but its promise will only be realized through community-based delivery, task-shifting to trained non-specialists, and culturally sensitive engagement strategies. Leveraging religious institutions, public health campaigns, and family-centered education can help dismantle stigma and improve help-seeking. Ultimately, addressing unrecognized psychiatric distress is not just a clinical need but a social imperative—one that upholds the dignity, rights, and well-being of Nigeria’s older adults in the face of a silent but growing mental health burden.
Raufu Sodiq Oluwagbenga (Thu,) studied this question.
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