Let’s Talk! Mental Health Crisis!
Millions of individuals are affected by some form of mental health illness in the US. An estimated 18.5% of the population experience a mental illness within a given year (National Alliance on Mental Illness [NAMI], 2019). A smaller percentage experienced serious mental health illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In the last year, 16.9% of adults encountered at least one episode of major depression (NAMI, 2019). Severe anxiety disorders like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder were experienced at a rate of 18.1%. Substance abuse issues affected over 20.2 million adults (NAMI, 2019). Data reflects that mental health illnesses are a growing health care concern that affects a large number of the population.
In hospitals across the nation, readmission rates for individuals that suffer from mental health illnesses is at an all time high. According to Sievers (2017), “Hospitalizations for persons with mental health disorders has increased faster than hospitalization for any other condition” (para. 1). This is a major concern because the number of inpatient beds and psychiatric inpatient units have steadily decreased since the 1950s (Boyd, 2012). This means that there are more individuals that suffer from some form of mental health disorder with less inpatient beds to treat them. Where do these individuals go once the hospitals are unable to accept them? According to Tim Murphy (2019), “We have replaced the hospital bed with the jail cell, the homeless shelter and the coffin” (Szabo, 2019, para. 3).
Individuals spend prolonged periods of time in state psychiatric hospitals. During their stay, they become rehabilitated and enter back into the community. However,community supports are lacking. Individuals miss appointmentsdue to transportation issues. Another major issue is the lack of mental health clinicians with specialized skills to treat these individuals. With the growing number of mental health illnesses, primary care clinicians are forced to accept and provide more specialized care with less assistance.
The social stigma associated with having a mental health illness also keeps individuals form seeking care or making appointments. These factors all contribute to individuals not receiving adequate care in the community. This lack of care leads to patients returning to the hospital in crisis states. Another major issue associated with the lack of community care for individuals that suffer from mental health illnesses isincreased healthcare spending. In 2018,US hospitals were predicted to spend 38.5 billion in providing mental health and substance abuse care (Newhook, 2017). Because individuals did not receive the care they needed in the community, they sought treatment in emergency rooms and psychiatric facilities.
Global Mentality Inc is a solution that supports both individuals that suffer from mental health illnesses and the providers that care for them.
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