Ageing International

, Volume 41, Issue 4, pp 394–413 | Cite as

Mental Health Care for Elderly People at Formal Mental Health Systems and Buddhist Temples in Vietnam: Making a Case for Mindful Elder Care in Vietnam

Article
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Abstract

Despite being one of the fastest aging countries in the world, Vietnam lacks systemic and comprehensive policies and programs to manage the physical and mental health needs of its elderly population. In this paper, I will review the formal, biomedical system for mental health care and present preliminary results of an ethnographic study on formal mental health services provided through Buddhist temples. Results of the study show that while Vietnamese formal mental health system is under-developed, Buddhist temples serve effectively as a source of help to Vietnamese elderly with mental health problems. In that light, Vietnam should incorporate Buddhist concepts of existence—most importantly, the concept of mindful aging—into its developing system of elder care.

Keywords

Elder care Vietnam Mindful ageing Buddhism 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

This study is supported partially by the Provost’s Research Grant in Social Sciences and the Walker Institute Research Grant at the University of South Carolina.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of Interest

Huong Nguyen declares no conflict of interest.

Ethical Treatment of Experimental Subjects (Animal and Human)

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Informed Consent

As there is no person or personal data appearing in the paper, there is no one from whom a permission should be obtained in order to publish personal data.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.College of Social WorkUniversity of South CarolinaColumbiaUSA

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