Overview
The term “mental illness” can cover a broad range of diseases including depression, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, personality disorders, autism, substance abuse, attention –deficit disorder, schizophrenia and dementias such as Alzheimer disease. Mental illness can affect thought processing, memory, mood, emotion, and communication. Some illnesses, such as autism and attention deficit disorder, can begin in childhood. Eating disorders tend to begin in adolescence. Illnesses like schizophrenia are more likely to develop in young adulthood while others, like Alzheimer disease, are illnesses of old age. Some mental illnesses can occur in any age group, depression, and anxiety being the most common. A specific event or group of experiences can trigger some problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Most occur for reasons that are still poorly understood by health professionals and researchers. Mental illnesses know no geographical, socio-economic, racial, or religious boundaries, nor are they the “result of personal weakness, a lack of character or poor upbringing.”1
Some Statistics
Mental illness as a whole causes more disability than any other problem. The most common type of mental illness is depression. Anxiety disorder is a close second. Each affects approximately 20 million Americans. Bipolar disorder, like depression, is a mood disorder that affects 2.6 percent of the population 18 and older2 including roughly 130,000 Arizonans per year. Post–traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that affects approx. 7.7 million adults (ages 18+) or about 3.5% of that age group. (Kessler RC, Chiu WT, Demler O, Walters EE. Prevalence, severity, and comorbidity of twelve-month DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R). Archives of General Psychiatry, 2005 Jun;62(6):617-27.) These numbers will rise as more veterans return from wars. 2.2 million, or 1%, of adults 18 and older has obsessive compulsive disorder. 4 Similarly 1.1 % of the adult population suffers from schizophrenia.5 So, in Arizona alone there are about 50,000 people who have each of these conditions. Alzheimer’s affects 4.5 million Americans-- 5% of those between ages 65-74, plus half of everyone over 85!6 As the population ages, especially in states like Arizona that attract many seniors, the numbers of individuals with Alzheimer’s and other dementing illnesses will be staggeringly high.
Good and Bad News
In their recently published nationwide survey, entitled, “Grading the States: a Report on America’s Health Care System for Serious Mental Illness,” The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) reported that access to treatment is often unavailable or sporadic. The grade for Arizona was D+, only slightly better than the disheartening national average grade of D. Because our population is tremendously diverse, there is no “one-size-fits all” solution. However, although Arizona still has a long way to go in providing good mental health services, much of the news is good. Patients with mental illness and their families are helping the AZ Dept. of Health Services develop better educational programs. Translation services for non-English speakers are being more readily provided and increased efforts are being made to decriminalize mental illness and divert those with mental illness into better treatment programs. With treatment, which includes medications and a range of other therapies, most individuals with mental illness can lead a full and productive life. Arizona has taken significant steps to increasing access to mental health services and the plans for the future are bright.
