Issues in Mental Healthcare

Every year, one in five Americans experiences a mental disorder, 35 of which are severe. More than 15 percent of those who experience mental disorders also have problems with substance abuse. Even with more effective treatments for mental disorders coming online each year, fewer than 25 percent of new cases actually receive treatment and more than 40 percent never do. By the end of the twentieth century, the United States was spending more than $70 billion annually on mental healthcare. The public at large faces an array of challenging issues in the coming century.

Science

• High quality research is needed for the future to address gaps in mental health knowledge and place the mental health field on a more solid scientific basis. Particularly important are studies which identify strategies for promoting mental health, preventing mental illness and reducing risk factors for mental disorders.

Stigma

• Stigma over mental illness prevents people from acknowledging mental health problems or seeking help. Addressing this issue requires improvements in access to mental healthcare, more public education and the promotion of scientific research that leads to more effective treatments for mental disorders. Broader public knowledge and acceptance of the underlying physical causes behind mental illness will inevitably reduce the stigma.

Effectiveness

• The general public is often unaware that effective psychological treatments beyond psychoanalysis is available. Scientific strides in the treatment of mental health problems have been made in counseling, medication therapy, psychotherapy and rehabilitation.

  Mental health services must fit within other related community-based services. This means better communication and interaction with social services, medical services and educational, faith-based and cultural resources. Interactive service models help prevent patient isolation and facilitates outcomes-based strategies for healthcare. Better communication throughout the system makes personnel shortages in the mental health field more obvious and encourages students to train in the field.

Financial Barriers

• Cost of mental health care is the primary reason most people do not seek help. When access to affordable mental healthcare improves, studies show that patients seek treatment earlier and treatment tends to be more effective. Public education helps increase the value society places upon mental health and increases demand for such services. Increasing demand reduces individual costs and encourages insurers and local governments to invest funds in better mental healthcare resources.

State-of-the-Art Treatment

• Even though there exists a variety of effective, scientifically-based mental health resources in most communities, members of the public and even the medical and social services communities are unaware of what is available. Without proper marketing and public education, effective state-of-the-art treatment is useless since no one knows about it. Lack of public demand for new mental health treatments impedes the development and deployment of new treatment strategies.

Diversity

• An important mental health challenge is adapting treatments to age, race, gender, sexual orientation and culture. Such factors play a role in how mental disorders present and how treatment must be implemented to be effective. When mental health services are culturally relevant, members of the different communities are more likely to use them. Mental health professionals must reflect not only sensitivity to the individual's personal differences, but must also acknowledge the validity of the patient's race, culture and social group in their approach to treatment.

Access

• All agencies, whether medical, social, criminal justice, welfare or educational, must act to facilitate easy access to mental healthcare. There needs to be multiple portals of entry into the mental healthcare system so that wherever a person with a mental disorder comes into contact with caregivers, the system channels that person into appropriate mental healthcare. It is especially important to ensure that individuals with severe mental illness who are a danger to themselves or others have ready voluntary access to adequate mental health services to reduce coercive assignment to mental health facilities. Voluntary cooperation vastly improves success rates with mental health treatment.