I. Overview of Mental Health and Mental Status:
Mental Health is described as the ability to adjust to changes and the stressors of life by using positive coping mechanisms. Mental Health incorporates emotions, thoughts, feelings, the ability to problems solve and overcome difficulties, maintain social bonds and understand the world around us and make healthy choices. Therefore, mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being.
Mental Illness is defined as a disorder that prevents a person from coping with everyday life and requires long-term treatment. The disorder/illness affects how the person thinks, feels, behaves, and interacts with others. These changes in thinking, feeling, and behaving, any one or all three, can cause the individual emotional distress and alter the manner in which the individual functions. Mental illness, especially depression, increases the risk for many types of physical illness especially chronic illness, e.g., Diabetes Mellitus II and Coronary Heart Disease. The reverse is also true that chronic illnesses can potentiate mental illnesses. It is possible to have imperfect mental health without a mental illness and it is also possible to have good mental health while having a diagnosis of a mental illness/psychiatric condition.
It is also possible to have different types of mental illnesses or disorders at the same time or at different types. Mental illness can be short-term, episodic, or long-term.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention mental illnesses are “among the most common illness in the United States.”(Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2018)
The statistics:
- 50% of individuals will have a mental status illness/disorder in their life.
- Every year 1 in 5 people will demonstrate signs of mental illness.
- At some point in their lives, 1 in 5 children will experience “debilitating mental illness.”(Merikangas & Burstein 2010)
- Severe mental illness including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression is suffered by 1 in 25 Americans.
Factors that can contribute to Mental Illness include:
- Early life trauma.
- Chronic diseases.
- Individual biological data e.g. genetic makeup.
- Social isolation.
- Lack of social support.
- Use of illicit drugs and alcohol.
- Earlier onset of puberty.
- there may be a mismatch between the child’s appearance and the way she acts and thinks.
- For girls is associated with depression, substance use, eating disorders, disruptive behavior disorders, and early sexual behavior (Graber, 2013).
- Early maturing girls demonstrate more anxiety and less confidence in their relationships with family and friends, and they compare themselves more negatively to their peers (Weir, 2016).
- For girls, the emphasis on physical attractiveness and sexuality is emphasized at puberty and they may lack effective coping strategies to deal with the attention they may receive. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-lifespandevelopment/chapter