Mental Health and Crisis Preparation?

Reg, at Elemental Truths, tells me that one out of five Americans is mentally ill, and he got a prove. It is a statistic coming from U.S. Public Health Services – so I bet other developed countries may have similar figures, if ones could provide similar extensive report. Quoted from Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General:

The current prevalence estimate is that about 20 percent of the U.S. population are affected by mental disorders during a given year. This estimate comes from two epidemiologic surveys: the Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) study of the early 1980s and the National Comorbidity Survey (NCS) of the early 1990s. Those surveys defined mental illness according to the prevailing editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (i.e., DSM-III and DSM-IIIR). The surveys estimate that during a 1-year period, 22 to 23 percent of the U.S. adult population—or 44 million people—have diagnosable mental disorders, according to reliable, established criteria. In general, 19 percent of the adult U.S. population have a mental disorder alone (in 1 year); 3 percent have both mental and addictive disorders; and 6 percent have addictive disorders alone.3 Consequently, about 28 to 30 percent of the population have either a mental or addictive disorder (Regier et al., 1993b; Kessler et al., 1994). Table 2-6 summarizes the results synthesized from these two large national surveys.

Bottomline from Reg? We need to take care of ourselves and prepare any negative and crisis situations. What do you think?

One of Five Americans is Mentally Ill – [Elemental Truths]