How can you make mental health resources more accessible? (2023)

How can you make mental health resources more accessible?

I believe we need three key innovations to improve the delivery of mental health care in the U.S.: shifting some tasks to physician extenders, integrating psychiatric care with primary care, and supplementing clinical capacity with software-based therapy tools.

Mental healthcare is especially difficult due to lingering social stigmas and scarcity of services. Subsequently, those with mental health impairment tend to be complex patients, which may convolute delivery of services.

Why are mental health resources important?

Providing Help

Mental health services also reduce the risk of chronic diseases related to stress, anxiety and substance abuse. Most importantly, mental health services save lives, while improving the outlook for people who may feel hopeless and lost.

Mental health awareness campaigns need to go beyond “awareness raising.” They need to do more than just share statistics and the local resources' contact information. Promising campaigns model hope, inspire creatively, practice safe messaging and call us to action.

Having people to talk to and depend on, and making new connections through hobbies or a social group can help reduce the risk of mental illness. There are many activities that can help increase your sense of belonging. Learning a language or martial art, volunteering, or joining a dancing group are a few options.

Establish and maintain routines and a calm classroom

Predictable routines and known boundaries support student mental health and wellbeing, promote learning engagement and support positive behaviours. You may need to regularly talk about classroom expectations and routines with your students.

School-based counselling interventions can contribute to mental health promotion. Teaching socio-emotional skills, such as emotion management, conflict management, problem solving skills can strengthen students' socio-emotional competence and enhance their psychological resilience.

Since medicines are often not available in health-care facilities, patients and families can be forced to pay for them. Because of the disproportionate prevalence of mental health problems in lower income groups, mental health care can be unaffordable for some groups, and thus inequitable.

Globally, there is a significant gap between the number of individuals in need of mental health care and those who actually receive treatment, with prior estimates suggesting that more than 56% of persons with depression [1–4] and 78% of persons with alcohol abuse and dependence [3] have not received care.

There are significant disparities in mental healthcare access among different racial and ethnic groups. One survey finds that white adults (23%) are more likely than black (13.6%) and Hispanic (12.9%) adults to receive any mental health treatment.

How can we improve access to healthcare?

A shortage of healthcare professionals in rural areas of the U.S. can restrict access to healthcare by limiting the supply of available services. As of March 2021, 61.47% of Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) were located in rural areas.

They include poverty and its correlates, geographic area of residence, race and ethnicity, sex, age, language spoken, and disability status. The ability to access care—including whether it is available, timely and convenient, and affordable—affects health care utilization.

Mental health problems can impact the academic performance and success of a college student. Poor mental health contributes to lack of motivation and problems focusing which can lead to failing grades. Campus-wide mental health resources for students to seek support could be the key to their academic success.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is considered the first-line treatment for most mental health conditions and insomnia. CBT has been proven effective in reducing symptoms of anxiety, depression and improving chronic poor sleep.

Young people perceive a number of barriers to help-seeking for mental health problems. These include stigma and embarrassment, problems recognising symptoms (poor mental health literacy), and a preference for self-reliance.

The results revealed that the most common barriers are fear of stigmatization, lack of awareness of mental health services, sociocultural scarcity, scarcity of financial support, and lack of geographical accessibility, which limit the patients to utilize mental health services.