Professional Documents
Culture Documents
9/1/15 Week 2 1
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
The D.S.M. would do well to recognize that a broken heart is not a medical
condition, and that medication is ill-suited to repair some tears. Time does not
heal all wounds, closure is a fiction, and so too is the notion that God never
asks of us more than we can bear. Enduring the unbearable is sometimes
exactly what life asks of us.
But there is a sweetness even to the intensity of this pain I feel. It is the thing
that holds me still to my son. And yes, there is a balm even in the pain. I shall
let it go when it is time, without reference to the D.S.M., and without the aid of
a pill.
- Ted Gup fellow of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard
University writing on the loss of his son to a drug overdose and the
pathologizing of grief in the DSM 5. (NY Times, April 2013)
9/1/15 Week 2 2
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
9/1/15 Week 2 3
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
1. Strictly speaking, disease or illness can affect only the body; hence, there can be no
mental illness.
2. “Mental illness” is a metaphor. Minds can be “sick” only in the sense that jokes are
“sick” or economies are “sick.”
4. Those who suffer from and complain of their own behavior are usually classified as
“neurotic”; those whose behavior makes others suffer, and about whom others
complain, are usually classified as “psychotic.”
5. 5. Mental illness is not something a person has, but is something he does or is.
Szasz, Thomas S. (2011-07-12). The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal
Conduct (p. 267). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
9/1/15 Week 2 4
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
…the fact that addiction is associated with neurobiological changes is not, in itself, proof
that the addict is unable to choose.
Robert Downey Jr. was once a poster boy for drug excess. “It’s like I have a loaded gun
in my mouth and my finger’s on the trigger, and I like the taste of gunmetal,” he said. It
seemed only a matter of time before he would meet a horrible end. But Downey entered
rehab and decided to change his life. Why did Downey use drugs? Why did he decide to
stop and to remain clean and sober?
An examination of his brain, no matter how sophisticated the probe, could not tell us why
and perhaps never will.
9/1/15 Week 2 7
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
ASP
9/1/15 Week 2 9
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
The common themes in the definition of mental disorder are distress, disability,
dyscontrol, and dysfunction but these are very imprecise and nonspecific
markers with little practical value.
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
As one illustration, it has become crystal clear that there is no one prototype
“schizophrenia” waiting to be explained with one incisive and sweeping
biological model. Instead, a painful process of promising false starts has taught
us there is no single gene, or small subset of genes, to account for
schizophrenia.
9/1/15 Week 2 11
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
Pragmatic concerns must play so central a role because the DSM is an official
system of classification that has a huge (perhaps excessive) influence on how
everything works in the mental health world: who gets diagnosed, how they are
treated, who pays for it, whether disability is appropriate, and whether someone
can be involuntarily committed, released from legal responsibility, or sue for
damages.
Fads in diagnosis come and go and have been with us as long as there has
been psychiatry. The fads meet a deeply felt need to explain, or at least to label,
what would otherwise be unexplainable human suffering and deviance. In
recent years the pace has picked up, with false epidemics coming in bunches
that involve an ever-increasing proportion of the population. We are now in the
midst of at least four such epidemics: autism, attention deficit, childhood bipolar
disorder, and paraphilia not otherwise specified.
9/1/15 Week 2 12
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
9/1/15 Week 2 15
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
9/1/15 Week 2 17
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
DSM-5 continues the trend. It is 947 pages long and has over 500
diagnostic conditions.
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
9/1/15 Week 2 19
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
It also helped silence the critics of the previous system, who claimed
that mental illnesses could not be defined in any objective way (e.g.,
Szaz – but he maintained his criticism).
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
9/1/15 Week 2 22
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
“By intent and careful plan the developers of DSM-III sought to bring about
a revolution in how mental health professionals thought about and practiced
psychiatric diagnosis. On many levels, the revolution succeeded remarkably
well” (Kirk & Kutchins, 1992, p. 11).
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
• The NIMH [National Institute of Mental Health] put the government’s stamp
of approval on the story.
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
The criteria could be coded into questions on a survey form that could be
administered by trained non-professionals (lay interviewers).
The first survey form was the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) used in the
ECA study.
9/1/15 Week 2 26
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
9/1/15 Week 2 27
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
Most treatment studies and treatment guidelines have focused on the efficacy
and effectiveness of disorder– specific treatments, and not on the effect of a
particular treatment for different disorders or particular aspects of treatment
processes.
9/1/15 Week 2 28
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
Widespread use of “NOS” because the original diagnostic criteria for each
diagnosis were too narrow (to improve reliability). They do not reflect the messy
clinical reality. NOS has been eliminated in DSM-5 and replaced with “other
specified” and “unspecified”.
• The converse of the multi-comorbidity issue is that people with the same
diagnosis can be very heterogeneous because of the mix and match set of
symptoms necessary for diagnosis:
9/1/15 Week 2 30
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
While it is true that no system based entirely on clinical description can match
the levels of diagnostic agreement made possible by objective medical tests,
there were no good alternatives for psychiatry when DSM-III was published in
the 1980s. Indeed, even today objective tests and biomarkers for mental
disorders remain research goals rather than clinical tools.
The DSM-III-R and DSM-IV revisions remained close to the DSM-III approach,
in part because of the dearth of new scientific information. As a result, diagnosis
in the DSM-III, DSM-III-R, and DSM-IV are best understood as useful
placeholders, based on careful description, but not on deeper understandings.
9/1/15 Week 2 31
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
The goal of this new manual, as with all previous editions, is to provide a common
language for describing psychopathology. While DSM has been described as a
“Bible” for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining
each. The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” – each
edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The
weakness is its lack of validity. Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease,
lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters
of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine,
this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of
chest pain or the quality of fever. Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common
in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we
have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment.
“The DSM-5 represents the best information currently available for clinical diagnosis of
mental disorders. Patients, families, and insurers can be confident that effective
treatments are available and that the DSM is the key resource for delivering the best
available care. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has not changed its
position on DSM-5.”
Nevertheless, NIMH has come out with its own set of criteria called the Research Domain
Criteria (RDoC). These criteria do not assume a diagnosis first but instead start with how
functioning is impaired in given domains:
“Rather than starting with an illness definition and seeking its neurobiological
underpinnings, RDoC begins with current understandings of behavior-brain relationships
and links them to clinical phenomena.”
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/research-priorities/rdoc/nimh-research-domain-criteria-
rdoc.shtml#toc_matrix
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
Prevalence rates across studies vary with the ECA study generally
having the lowest rates
Per the NCS-R, the chance of having at least one DSM disorder in
your lifetime is close to 50%
9/1/15 Week 2 36
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
Rates across the 3 surveys vary but are difficult to compare because:
Different diagnostic systems
DSM-III (ECA)
DSM-IIIR (NCS)
DSM-IV (NCS-R)
9/1/15 Week 2 38
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
The three most prevalent 12-month disorders found by the NCS-R were
specific phobia (9%), social phobia (7%), and major depressive disorder
(7%).
The most prevalent 12-month disease classes are anxiety disorders (18%),
mood disorders (10%), impulse-control disorders (9%), and substance use
disorders (4%).
The most prevalent lifetime disorders are anxiety disorders (29%), mood
disorders (21%), impulse-control disorders (25%), and substance use
disorders (15%).
9/1/15 Week 2 39
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
The mental disorders with the highest proportion of seriously disabling 12-
month cases are: bipolar disorder (83%); drug dependence (57%); and
obsessive-compulsive disorder (51%).
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
Many disorders start early, half of all lifetime cases start by 14 years
and three-fourths by 24 years. The age of onset varies by disorder:
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
Disorders that occur (have their onset) later in life are generally comorbid
(secondary) conditions.
Mental disorders are distinct from chronic physical disorders because they
have their strongest foothold in youth, with substantially lower risk among
people who have matured out of the high-risk age range.
9/1/15 Week 2 43
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
The dependence rate on all other drugs combined is about half the
dependence rate on alcohol
(We will consider SUDs later on in the semester both as independent disorders
as well as very common co-occurring conditions with SMIs)
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
NCS-R
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
There was a big problem with the NCS-R data and findings that likely reflect
the problems with the DSM (and ECA):
Are this many people really mentally ill in the US and in need of
treatment????
Implications:
26% (~60 million) of the United States population needs mental health
treatment in a given year?
46% (~135 million) of the United States population needs mental health
treatment in their lifetime?
A prospective study found that, by age 32, 50% of the general population had
qualified for an anxiety disorder, 40% for a depression, and 30% for alcohol
abuse or dependence (Moffitt et al. 2010). Imagine what the rates will be like
by the time these people hit age 50, or 65, or 80. In this brave new world
psychiatric overdiagnosis, few will get through life without a mental disorder.
9/1/15 Week 2 46
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
Because diagnoses have no real biological or neurological referrants, they are subject to
cultural influences and contexts. Important influences on diagnostic inflation include:
1. The widespread appeal of the DSM is in its clear definitions, which allow people to
diagnose themselves and family members.
2. It is fairly easy to meet criteria for one or another DSM diagnosis. The definitional
thresholds may be set too low.
4. Patient and family advocacy groups have played an important role in calling attention
to neglected needs; in lobbying for clinical, school, and research programs; and in
reducing stigma and promoting group and community. support.
9/1/15 Week 2 47
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
5. It is no accident that the recent epidemics have mostly occurred in the childhood
disorders. There are two contributing factors. The first is the push by drug companies
into this new market. The second is that the provision of special educational services
often requires that there be a DSM diagnosis.
6. The media feed off of and feed into the public interest in mental disorder. This
happens in two ways. Periodically, the media become obsessed with one or another
celebrity whose public meltdown seems related to a real or imagined mental disorder.
The mental disorder is then endlessly dissected by the media.
9/1/15 Week 2 48
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
Maybe if we adjusted for severity, the numbers would make more sense (this is
what is meant by dimensionality in the Blashfield article)…. Criteria for severe
impairment in the NCS-R:
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
NCS-R
All 26.3%
9/1/15 Week 2 51
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
So, viewed in this way, about 8% of the US adult population (18 years of
age or older) needs mental health treatment…
So the people with the most severe manifestations of the disorder get
treated right?
9/1/15 Week 2 52
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
Yes and no… on the one hand, disorder severity is strongly related to
treatment …
In the US, 52% of those with severe disorders, 34% of those with moderate,
22% of those with mild, and 8% of those with no disorder…
But….
9/1/15 Week 2 53
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
AND… in developed countries (including the US) 35% to 50% of the serious
cases are untreated
9/1/15 Week 2 54
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
Among those cases that do get treatment, at least half receive inadequate
care (even when “adequate” was defined as >= 2 visits to a treatment
provider…
People with SMI also get poorer medical care when they are able to access
it.
Lower rates of treatment among racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly,
low-income, those with co-occurring substance abuse, and low education.
9/1/15 Week 2 55
Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
The greatest part of this expansion occurred in the general medical sector.
General physicians often act as gatekeepers responsible for initiating mental
health treatments themselves and for deciding whom to triage for specialty care.
Only a few patients treated in the GM sector receive minimally adequate care…
but presumably involve provider factors (eg, competing demands, inadequate
reimbursements for treating mental disorders, and less training and experience in
treating mental disorders) and patient factors (eg, worse compliance with
treatments than in MHS sectors).
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
We will talk more about international comparisons, but based on NCS-R data
and comparable data collected in other countries…..
30
26.4 12-month prevalence – any disorder
25
20.5
20 18.4
17.8
16.9
14.9
15
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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Mental Health Policy II
Definitions, Epidemiology, Service Use and Access
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