The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has ordered annual mental health screening for 22,500 medical and dental students, as well as faculty and staff, to identify psychological distress and suicide risk at an early stage.
PMDC President Prof. Dr. Rizwan Taj said the initiative is aimed at identifying people experiencing emotional distress or other mental-health problems and providing support before their condition worsens or leads to self-harm.
He made the remarks at the Pakistan Global Mental Health Summit 2026, where Federal Health Minister Syed Mustafa Kamal launched the National Mental Health Policy 2026-2035.
Prof. Taj said mental health has also been made an independent and compulsory subject in undergraduate medical and dental education.
The council has increased mental-health teaching from 50 to 175 hours and plans to raise it further to 200 hours to better prepare future doctors and dentists to recognize and respond to mental-health conditions.
Medical and dental colleges have also been directed to establish primary mental-health care centers to provide support and referral services for students, staff and others who need assistance.
The measures come as Pakistan’s first nationally representative psychiatric survey found that 32.3 percent of adults, or nearly one in three Pakistanis, were living with a diagnosable mental or behavioral disorder.
The study also found that 6.2 percent of participants had experienced suicidal thoughts or behavior during the previous month, while 1.1 percent reported having attempted suicide at some point in their lives.
Prof. Dr. Mohammad Iqbal Afridi, professor emeritus of psychiatry and a co-author of the study, said the findings should help guide policymaking, workforce planning and the expansion of community-based mental-health services.
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