The Surprising Prevalence of Mental Health Treatment: New Study Finds Majority Seek Help Twice as Often

Professor at the University of Copenhagen Kessing found that the majority of people receive mental health treatment more than twice as often as previously thought

JAMA Psychiatry published a study Wednesday that revealed that about 80 percent of the world’s population receives treatment for a mental health disorder over the course of their lives.

“The lifetime incidence of mental illness is estimated to account for 80% of the world,” lead study author Professor Lars Wedel Kessing from the University of Copenhagen told i24NEWS.

“The lifetime prevalence of mental illness outside Western and OECD countries is likely to be higher due to the physical, mental and social challenges of living in such societies. However, underdiagnosis and poor treatment are likely to be greater in these societies than in Western countries/ Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.

The Danish professor, along with his team of five researchers including American-Israeli Avshalom Caspi of Duke University, found that mental health disorder and/or prescription use was also accompanied by increased social and economic hardship. Although it is quite “normal”.

He explained that “low income, unemployment, or not being married are some of the challenges that are widely seen by those with a mental health disorder or a related prescription. This is despite the widespread prevalence, which the study showed, but still There is a lingering stigma.The study used a representative sample from a huge Danish registry of 1.5 million individuals from 1995 to 2018.

2023-07-13 17:18:37

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