Impact of Mental Illness
Mental illness can have a wide variety of symptoms and can affect a person’s mood, how they think, and even how they interact with others. This can lead to conflicts with family members, difficulties in relationships, and often social isolation.
Mental illness has a significant impact on all of us. As health care providers, we need to help make mental illness easier to talk about.
1 in 5 U.S. adults
experience mental illness each year.
1 in 20 U.S. adults
experience serious mental illness (SMI) each year.
1 in 6 U.S. youth ages 6 – 17
experience a mental health disorder each year.
50% of all lifetime mental illness
begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24.
Source: National Alliance on Mental Illness, “Mental Health Conditions”
The Impact of Mental Illness
Mental health conditions are more common than we think, mainly because people don’t like to talk about them. AmeriHealth Caritas Florida is here to help start the conversation, so you can provide members with the care they need.
Make it a routine practice to screen for depression. Regular screenings for mental illness and substance use disorders can make a difference.
Learn more about the resources available for the integration of care with these important screening tools:
- Patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) (PDF) depression screening.
- Behavioral Health Provider Toolkit (PDF) - Adult, Adolescent and Child behavioral health screening assessments for Anxiety Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Depressive Disorders can be found in our Behavioral Health Toolkit, along with Suicide Prevention Practices.
- Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral for Treatment (SBIRT)
- Tools to Screen for Alcohol and Substance Use Disorder