Mental health is critical to every person's wellbeing, interpersonal relationships, and healthy family, as well as the ability to live a life that is full and productive. Everyone, including young and adolescents, are at risk of unhealthy and unsafe behaviors such as suicide, drug abuse, and violence if their mental health problems are not treated. Mental disorders are one of the most causes of disability, and the burden of mental health is among the highest of all illnesses. Globally, the magnitude of mental diseases has been highlighted by research on the global burden of disease. In the last decade, there have been increasing interests in finding out the burden of disabling health and chronic conditions, which are not necessarily fatal, like mental disorders. The burden on healthcare manifests through mortality related to the disease, prevalence, disabilities, and impairments associated with the mental health disorder and costs.
Untreated mental health disorders exact a high toll on the overall disease burden. They account for 13% of the total global weight of disease. One of the leading causes of mental disease burden is a unipolar depressive disorder, which accounts to close to 4.3% of the total disease burden. Estimates and predictions have it that by the year 2030, depression will be among the leading causes of global disease burden (Funk, 2016). Mental disorders create a massive burden concerning disability. Estimates form published data has it that mental illness accounts for about 32.4% of the number of years lived with disability. They also account for 13% of disability-adjusted life years, according to Funk (2016).
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A research on the global burden of disease 2013 found out that five types of mental illnesses were among the top 20 causes of disease globally. These types are major depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, dysthymia, and bipolar disorder. Figures in 2014 suggest that close to 1 in 4 Americans had a mental problem previous year, mostly depression and anxiety, and 1 in 7 of those victims had severe mental health issues. The case of children and adolescents suffering from mental health problems is also alarming. In 2010, close to 1 in 5 children in the US had a mental health problem, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (AGHD), being the most common type (Vigo, Thornicroft, & Atun, 2016). It is also a common phenomenon to find people having more than one mental health illness.
Mental health illnesses have grave impacts on a person's physical health. They are also associated with the increased prevalence of some of the current's most pressing chronic conditions like diabetes, cancer, and heart diseases. Mental health disorders have long-lasting and harmful effects on a person's life, which leads to high economic and psychological costs to both the victim and those living close to the victim (Vigo, Thornicroft, & Atun, 2016). For instance, a global burden of disease study has shown that bipolar and schizophrenia has the highest disability ratings.
In the same study, the estimates reveal that there exist considerable variations in terms of costs across disorders. The estimated costs ranged from $11 billion yearly from a mere phobia to more than $200 billion yearly for drug use or alcohol use disorder (Eaton, Martins, Nestadt, Bienvenu, Clarke, & Alexandre, 2008). These figures consist of both direct and indirect costs. The phobias have a low level of disability but are much common, thus yields many high costs. Panic disorders have higher SDS severity, although they are rare but are associated with higher costs. Generally, in terms of cost, mental health disorders have increased the economic burden for individuals and families. Few studies have been carried out to determine the mortality burden of mental health disorders; thus, there lacked reliable estimates to provide the required figures. Despite that, people with a mental disorder have a high mortality rate.
However, the burden of mental health has, for a long time, been underestimated to several factors. One of the factors is the overlap that exists between neurological disorders and psychiatric disorders. The other reason for its underestimation is the grouping of behaviors linked to self-injury and suicide as a different category outside that of mental illness. Also, there has been little consideration of how severe mental illness contributes to mortality from associated causes. The other one is the conflation of chronic pain syndromes with musculoskeletal disorders. The last factor is the exclusion of personality disorders in the calculations of mental health disease calculations.
In conclusion, the recent studies on the burden of mental disorders globally show a major public health concern that has impacts on patients, nations, and society at large. More research should be carried out to find effective ways of handling the increasing burden resulting from mental disorders. Having found out these mental diseases can be treated using both psychotropic medications as well as psychological counseling, intervention packages ought to be developed to try to ease the increasing burden. The developed packages should be tested to establish their real-world effectiveness with their cost-effectiveness being demonstrated being established to guide policymakers to determine the most effective interventions. The sustainability and transportability of these packages should be deliberated in public health research, and there should be a demonstration of a link between effectiveness, efficacy, sustainability, cost-effectiveness, and generalizability.
References
Eaton, W. W., Martins, S. S., Nestadt, G., Bienvenu, O. J., Clarke, D., & Alexandre, P. (2008). The burden of mental disorders. Epidemiologic Reviews, 30(1), 1-14.
Funk, M. (2016). Global burden of mental disorders and the need for a comprehensive, coordinated response from health and social sectors at the country level. Retrieved on, 30.
Vigo, D., Thornicroft, G., & Atun, R. (2016). Estimating the true global burden of mental illness. The Lancet Psychiatry, 3(2), 171-178.
