Barrier to Access Mental Health

Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Refer to the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric under the Settings icon above for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.

Barriers to Utilizing Mental Health Services

Some of our text reading this week focuses on the utilization of health care services and the different settings in which these services are delivered. Using the Ashford Library, search the ProQuest database to identify at minimum one peer-reviewed article published within the last five years that focuses on one of the factors listed below in terms of its potential for creating a barrier to the utilization of mental health services:

Gender (sex) as a barrier to the utilization of mental health services
Lifespan (age) as a barrier to the utilization of mental health services
One comorbidity or multiple comorbidities (additional diagnoses either mental/psychiatric/behavioral/developmental or physical) as a barrier/barriers to the utilization of mental health services
Severity of mental or physical illness as a barrier to the utilization of mental health services
Sociocultural factors (financial, transportation, cultural) as a barrier/barriers to the utilization of mental health services

Your discussion should be a minimum of 300 words, and include appropriate citations from the referenced article(s), as well as any additional resources you choose to include in your discussion. Be sure to explain the biological, psychological, and social reasons for the existence of why this particular factor is a barrier to utilizing mental health services. Include recommendations for strategies to reduce this disparity in utilization. Provide all resources as citations and references in APA format.

Guided Response: Respond substantively to a minimum of two classmates’ initial posts. When possible, choose posts that focus on different factors than your own posting. Provide your opinion regarding the validity of the rationales provided for the existence of barriers, and if you agree with any strategies for reducing such barriers. Your response(s) should demonstrate that you have read any existing replies on the board. In your response, mention information and viewpoints already expressed by existing responses to the same post. Provide a courteous and interactive learning environment. (See the Netiquette Rules link on the About Discussions page in the left navigation if you have questions.) Continue to monitor the content board through 6:00 p.m. (Mountain Time) on Day 7 of the week and reply to anyone who has responded to your original post.

Gender (sex) as a barrier to the utilization of mental health services
Lifespan (age) as a barrier to the utilization of mental health services
One comorbidity or multiple comorbidities (additional diagnoses either mental/psychiatric/behavioral/developmental or physical) as a barrier/barriers to the utilization of mental health services
Severity of mental or physical illness as a barrier to the utilization of mental health services
Sociocultural factors (financial, transportation, cultural) as a barrier/barriers to the utilization of mental health services

Replies

Thomas Lyons

Mar 4, 2021 at 3:56 PM

Health psychologists and others who study health care have discovered many factors that influence whether and when individuals are likely to seek medical care. Some of these factors involve people’s ideas and beliefs about treating illness. (Sarafino & Smith, 2016). Many sociocultural factors can also play a role in creating barriers for anyone trying to get access to mental health services. A family with a lower income may not be able to cover all their medical expenses in full and most times neither will insurance companies. What begins to happen are less scheduled visits to the doctor and using medical services only during emergencies in order to save funds. Some people feel as if they do not have enough time to seek treatment or they have no means of transportation while others may feel shame when deciding to seek treatment services.

According to “Increasing Access to Care by Delivering Mental Health Services in Schools: The School-Based Support Program”, it is estimated that approximately 25% of school age youth face mental and behavioral health challenges with the majority being insufficiently treated. (Swick & Powers, 2018). Once treated and identified as a potentially struggling with mental health, students were referred out to the community to receive their treatment. Reasons why this service did not work well was due to the student’s inability to attend scheduled appointments, or provide proof of health insurance in other instances. In this article, a unique school-community partnership in North Carolina decided to remove this barrier by adding a program that provided these services on campus. This can greatly benefit a student and their family who may be struggling to receive the help they need immediately, as we are aware that lacking the proper treatment can increase the risk of serious consequences. Everyone should be provided equal assistance in order to be treated by mental health services.

References

Sarafino, E.P., & Smith, T.W. (2016). Health psychology: Biopsychosocial interactions (9th ed.). Retrieved from https://vitalsource.com

Swick, D., & Powers, J. D. (2018). Increasing access to care by delivering mental health services in schools: The school-based support program. School Community Journal, 28(1), 129-144. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.proxy-library.ashford….

Elyse Broome

Mar 4, 2021 at 7:17 PM

Hi Class! Happy Thursday.

Healthcare equity is an issue that we face in the United States due to our non-socialized healthcare system. Patients who cannot afford appropriate healthcare access are overlooked because of their inability to pay, leaving them to seek care in emergency rooms not equipped to handle the complexities of continuing care that some patients need. Having access to local mental health services that are either low cost or accepting the patient’s insurance plan can be tough to overcome. Many mental health disorders require outpatient treatment to manage, so access to treatment is crucial. Those in low-income areas may not have transportation to a clinic and would have to rely on a treatment center being on a bus route; according to Arundell et al. (2020), “The majority of interventions tend to use providing psychological support and delivering education and training as strategies.” Ensuring education and training are available in low-income areas will help patients know what resources are available if needed. There is already a stigma around mental health and the need for mental health treatment, and adding additional barriers to seeking treatment will turn some patients away from seeking any treatment. Patients with no insurance or limited access to education on who qualifies for Medicaid and how to apply may also choose not to seek treatment. Education on Medicaid should be provided along with education regarding available resources. That way, those with lower income can obtain insurance to receive specialized treatment and routine medical care.

References:

Arundell, L., Greenwood, H., Baldwin, H., Kotas, E., Smith, S., Trojanowska, K., & Cooper, C. (2020). Advancing mental health equality: a mapping review of interventions, economic evaluations, and barriers, and facilitators. Systematic Reviews, 9(115). doi: 10.1186/s13643-020-01333-6

Dana Dillard

Mar 4, 2021 at 10:35 PM

Hi, all! So I know this discussion focuses on barriers to access and use of mental health services, but I also want to bring up another very important idea in health psychology which is that of health disparities and inequalities in health in general. I was reading Eyal et al.’s (2013) introduction and wanted to share their opening:

Travel from Southeast of downtown Washington to Montgomery County,
Maryland. For each mile travelled life expectancy [LE] rises about a year and
a half. There is a twenty-year gap between poor blacks at one end of the journey
(LE 57) and rich whites at the other (LE 76.7)1. (p. 1)

This is an eye-opening statistic, yet the statistic provides us with very little information. What else might we need to know to go about addressing this inequality in life expectancy? What kinds of factors might be contributing to this difference? How can we use social and geopolitical factors to better understand health indicators, and by like token, how can we use health indicators to better understand social and geopolitical factors? Lastly, how do these all tie into the biopsychosocial model as we have examined in Sarafino and Smith (2016)? I look to forward to any and all ideas! – Dr D

Barrier to Access Mental Health