Behavioral health issues have seen a dramatic increase in diagnosis over the past few decades. Often times, the associated treatment with the diagnosis have little or no effect on the mental wellbeing of the patient.
The reason is due to the general lack of proper screening methods and timely diagnosis. In fact, according to Steven Hollon, PhD at Vanderbilt University – “half of the folks being treated with antidepressants aren’t benefitting from the pharmacological effects of the drugs themselves but rather from a placebo effect.”
Medical professionals often result in prescribing drugs to treat the symptoms of the behavioral health as opposed to recommending therapy – which in most cases of low and mild depression, proves to be more effective and reduces the chance of relapse in the future.
Behavioral Health Issues Left Unchecked
As with any physical issue, if a wound is left unchecked it will only get worse. Behavioral health issues are very similar and something like a mild depression could eventually develop into something much more severe. Depression is one of the leading causes of suicide around the world and has a devastating effect on the global economy.
Much of this could be avoided if regular behavioral health checkups were integrated into annual physicals.
The Rise of Medication Nation
There are many factors that play into the ‘why’ behind the rise of antidepressants and antipsychotics. Psychotropic drug use among adults in the US has seen an increase of 22 percent from 2001 to 2010. In total, the amount of money spent in one year on these kinds of drugs reached $34 Million dollars accounting for anti-psychotics, anti-depressants and ADHD medication.
The drug industry plays a pivotal role in this increase, as it is easier for health insurance to get reimbursements for drug treatment than therapy. In turn, this has increased the sales of psychotropic drugs and created a shift from psychiatry to psychopharmacology as the ‘go-to-solution’ when dealing with behavioral health issues.
Over the span of 9 years, from 1996 to 2005, the drug industry has tripled its spending on consumer marketing. There are financial incentives to push drugs as psychiatrists, resulting up to four times as much money using drugs as the solution as opposed to psychotherapy.
The Effectiveness of Drugs
If these drugs actually provided a benefit for the general population it would be a different story, however, in most cases these drugs are ineffective at treating the ‘cause of the behavioral problem,’ and rather treats the symptoms such as depression, anxiety and more.
Cognitive therapy may just be as effective as antidepressants in most cases, and reduces the risk of relapse while avoiding the negative side effects of drug treatment. This is because the patient learns to cope with the issues at hand instead of merely treating the manifested symptoms.
How to Detect Behavioral Health Issues on Time
One of the biggest problems with behavioral health issues are, unlike physical checkups, people tend to rather ‘cope’ with their behavioral problems than seek help. In many cases, people go for decades struggling with their condition before seeking help.
In order to curb this, an active approach to mental health screenings should become commonplace within the health industry as a whole. With technology facilitating the initial behavioral health screening process, these methodologies can be implemented in all health care institutions across the world.
M3 Information caters to this concern by providing software that handles the initial behavioral health screening. The process is so simple that it can be administered to patients while in the waiting room.
With this information, physicians have have a deeper understanding of the general health of their patients and are able to make better recommendations for treatment.
