According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), one in five hospital admissions are for mental disorder-related conditions. A report published last October 2008, states that about 1.4 million hospitalizations in 2006 involved patients who were admitted for a mental illness, while another 7.1 million patients had a mental disorder in addition to the physical condition for which they were admitted, according to the latest News and Numbers from the AHRQ.
The 8.5 million hospitalizations involving patients with mental illness represented about 22 percent of the overall 39.5 million hospitalizations in 2006. AHRQ's analysis found that of the nearly 1.4 million hospitalizations specifically for treatment of a mental disorder in 2006 broke down as follows:
1. Nearly 730,000 involved depression or other mood disorders, such as bipolar disease.
2. Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders caused another 381,000.
3. Delirium—which can cause agitation or inability to focus attention—dementia, amnesia and other cognitive problems accounted for 131,000.
4. Anxiety disorders and adjustment disorders—stress-related illnesses that can affect feeling, thoughts, and behaviors—accounted for another 76,000.
The remaining roughly 34,000 hospitalizations involved attention-deficit disorder, disruptive behavior, impulse control, personality disorders, or mental disorders usually diagnosed in infancy or later childhood.
This data is consistent with pharmacy data that reports that among the top five most prescribed drugs in the United States, four are for mental disorders diagnosis. This are pretty scarry statistics! Have we gone too far as a society?
www.ahrq.gov
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Miscortes, thanks for the feedback on this SHARE. From my professional perspective I am not surprised at the data. The answer may well be the result of a healthcare model enamored with drugs, a society brainwashed by glamorous drug marketing campaigns that promote "quick fixes" or happy pills to numb ourselves from the real world.
Most doctors (except for mental health providers) are not trained on handling mental-health conditions when a patient first shows up at their office. The safest thing to do for that doctor is probably prescribe the drug. Women have been misdiagnosed as having "stress-related symptoms" for years by their regular doctors if you recall that. Now, if the patient is referred to a Psychiatrist more than likely the patient will also end up with a drug because is what psychiatrists are trained to do unless the patient ends up with a more holistic provider that embraces other treatment modalities.
The data shared here does not specify if those numbers were "wrong diagnoses". I would assume that some may be linked to chemical imbalances in the brain and drugs may be appropriate. But our society in general is overdrugging people and latest data includes teenagers.
Sometimes I wonder if poor nutrition, environmental factors such as unhealhty life style factors, belief systems (or lack of) in fast pace societies like the US are THE root cause. We have gone too far!
April 6, 2009 - 10:08pmThis Comment
I heard about this and I was astonished also. Do you think it is because our society turns to pills for everything? Why would mental issues be so prevalent now compared to 10 years ago?
April 5, 2009 - 10:21amInteresting subject.
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