Mental Health and Mental

Illness
 Concepts of Mental Health and
Illness
• All human behavior lies somewhere along
a continuum of mental health and mental
wellness.
 Signs of Mental Health
• Happiness • A healthy self-concept
• Control over behavior • Satisfying
• Appraisal of reality relationships
• Effectiveness in work • Effective coping
strategies
 Signs of Mental Illness
• Major depressive • Dependent
disorder personality disorder
• Control disorder, • Borderline personality
undersocialized, disorder
aggressive • Substance
• Schizophrenic dependencies
disorder
• Adjustment disorder
with work/academic
inhibition
 Epidemiology of Mental Illness
• Epidemiology is the quantitative study of
the distribution of mental disorders in
human populations.
• Three levels of investigation:
– Descriptive
– Analytic
– Experimental
 Clinical Epidemiology
• Clinical epidemiology is a broad field that
addresses what happens to people with
illnesses who are seen by providers of clinical
care
• Clinical epidemiology includes
– Studies of the natural history of an illness
– Studies of diagnostic screening tests
– Observational & experimental studies of interventions
used to treat people with the illness or symptoms
 Prevalence
• Prevalence rate is the proportion of a
population with mental disorder at a given
time.
 Psychobiological Disorder
• Disorders which has strong biological
influences:
• Schizophrenia
• Bipolar disorder
• Major depression
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder and panic
disorders
• Posttraumatic stress disorder
• Autism…
 Factors that affect Mental Health
• Support systems
• Family influences
• Developmental events
• Culture or subculture beliefs and values
• Health practices
• Negative influences impinging upon one’s
life
 Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders
• Diagnostic tool in which each mental
disorder is conceptualized as a clinically
significant behavioral or psychological
syndrome or pattern that occurs in an
individual and is associated with present
distress or disability or with a significantly
increased risk of suffering death, pain,
disability, or an important loss of freedom.
 DSM-IV-TR
• Manual includes:
– Cultural diversity issues through
• Discussion of cultural variations for each of the
clinical disorders
• Description of culture-bound syndromes
• Outline is designed to assist the clinician in
evaluating and reporting the impact of the
individual’s cultural context
 DSM-IV-TR
• Data collected from epidemiological
studies are included in the manual
• Multiaxial system provides the clinician a
broad range of information for diagnostic
purposes
Multiaxial System of DSM-IV-TR
• Axis I- clinical disorders
• Axis II- personality disorders and Mental
Retardation
• Axis III- general medical conditions
• Axis IV- psychosocial and environmental
problems
• Axis V- global assessment of functioning