Annotated Bibliography: Neglect of Patient Care for the Impoverished with Mental Health Issues
Draine, J., Salzer, M. S., Culhane, D. P., & Hadley, T. R. (2002). Role of Social Disadvantage in
Crime, Joblessness, and Homelessness Among Persons With Serious Mental Illness. Psychiatric Services, 53(5), 565–573. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.53.5.565
Summary –
This article focuses on the complicated relationship between mental health and social issues such as poverty, crime, violence, and a lack of education. The authors of this article emphasize that there is a positive relationship between the two however, it is hard to draw a straight line to connect them. Social issues and mental health are both very complex issues, but it is important to know how we as a society can combat one issue being social concerns, and at the same time we would be combating mental illness. All things considered, this article emphasizes that mental illness isn’t a cause of social issues such as poverty, however, social issues are at the root of both physical and mental ailments seen throughout different communities. In order to really combat mental illness, we have to try and fix the problems before they start which would mean alleviating social issues. While possible, it would take years to truly remove all the social issues affecting our world.
Connection –
I intend to use the source to support my thesis. Mental illness isn’t something new in our world, however in recent years the attention to mental illness has increased. It is undeniable that mental illness and health have become taboo topics making it more easy to speak about, however, the more research that is found, the harder it is to combat the complexity that is mental illness. This article emphasizes the neglect that patients face when they aren’t in a certain socio-economic level, who may be violent or regarded as a criminal, and urges mental health professionals to take everyone’s mental health seriously. For these reasons, I think this article will be very useful in my paper.
Quotes –
“Poverty and its associated social disadvantage can also be linked to important mediating factors, such as decreased self-efficacy and coping. If persons with mental illness are not poor to begin with, they are likely to become poor, and poverty factors become salient in explaining common outcomes, such as quality of life, social and occupational functioning, general health, and psychiatric symptoms”.
“In addressing social problems among persons with mental illness, researchers need to give more consideration to social factors that overlap the boundaries of mental illness and mental health”.
Ewart, S. B., Happell, B., Bocking, J., Platania-Phung, C., Stanton, R., & Scholz, B. (2017). Social
and material aspects of life and their impact on the physical health of people diagnosed with mental illness. Health Expectations, 20(5), 984–991. https://doi.org/10.1111/hex.12539
Summary –
This article discusses shorter life expectancies and poor physical health as a result of neglectful mental health care. A study was done evaluating how patients understood and viewed their treatment plans and the professionalism and non judgemental nature of their physicians. The results of the study showed that poverty, no access to public services (insurance), and being seen as lesser than by peers and physicians, has left patients with mental illness more barriers in receiving equitable health care. The author urges for mental health to be taken more seriously in the grand scheme of the world as well as pushes people to try and understand mental illness more so that patients could be properly taken care of.
Connection –
Similar to my other sources, this article will help to strengthen and support my thesis. It is important that on all levels of mental health and illness, physicians take care of their patients equitably, regardless of the patient’s personal life and economic standing. This article is different from the other ones I’ve chosen because it talks about how social concerns such as poverty and public insurance contributes to mental illness, and both collectively lead to a worsened physical health and a shorter life expectancy. This article will help me to demonstrate the necessity to put equity into the mental health care system, in order to keep both the mind and the body healthy.
Quotes –
“Nonetheless, the research objective was to understand consumers’ subjectivities of their experiences. The major economic difficulties that participants oriented to are likely to be more salient to consumers’ lives than measures of income and welfare benefits received. Consumer views indicate that poverty has a profound effect on health-care access, foregrounding the importance of wholly government-funded health coverage and its importance for mental health consumers’ physical health outcomes”.
“It is concerning that, to participants, neglect by the health-care system was a manifestation of stigma and unfair judgement by the wider society. These findings affirm the need to continue to challenge the stigma of mental illness, which continues to be a significant problem … internationally”.
Mills, C. (2018). From ‘Invisible Problem’ to Global Priority: The Inclusion of Mental Health in
the Sustainable Development Goals. Development and Change, 49(3), 843–866. https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12397
Summary –
In this article, the author, China Mills, discusses the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) choice to include mental health or rather a lack of concern for mental health as a major issue to development in our world. The inclusion focuses on three main aspects: how much does mental health contribute to the ‘global burden of disease’, mental health being quantified as an economic burden, and most importantly the correlation between mental health and poverty. Mills prioritizes the importance of mental health throughout the entirety of the piece. She emphasizes the need to really understand mental health and the effect it has throughout every aspect of the world, and her goal to push people towards working “ … together in producing reductionist, economistic, individualized and psychologized responses to poverty” (Mills).
Connection –
This piece does a great job at showing the relationship between poverty and mental illness. I intend to use this piece to support my claim that mental health in itself is under acknowledged, but for the impoverished it is barely acknowledged at all. Mills, the author of the piece sheds light on the lack of psychiatric help, especially for those who are considered poor, and how we could combat this “global burden of disease”. This article will help me to explain the neglect that people face, and why it should be acknowledged and treated.
Quotes –
“ … the potentially detrimental effects of the economy on people’s health and advocating for: ‘Improving social and economic environments as part of sustainable development so that mental health problems are less likely to occur’ (ibid.: 6). Similarly, the WHO (2010a: 63) mentions (again briefly) ‘the social and economic factors leading to vulnerability’ linked to mental ill health”.
Perese, E. F. (2007). Stigma, Poverty, and Victimization: Roadblocks to Recovery for
Individuals With Severe Mental Illness. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, 13(5), 285–295. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078390307307830
Summary –
This article focuses on people who have been released from mental health facilities, and their road to recovery from serious mental illness. Perese, one of the authors in the journal, spotlighted that a lot of the bumps or roadblocks in the road to recovery are stigmatization, impoverishment, and victimization. According to Perese, “stigma creates barriers to accessing safe housing, employment, and community integration. Poverty decreases ability to meet needs and increases risk for victimization. Victimization occurs as direct violence, exploitation, neglect, and abuse by care providers. It results in worsening of psychiatric disorders, increased need for care, decreased quality of life, revictimization, and perpetration of violence” (Perese). What this goes to show is the need to take extensive care of patients and their treatment. Patients shouldn’t be penalized for their socio – economic standing, they should be treated in a way that will help their condition.
Connection –
This article is similar to my other articles, and I intend to use this article to support my claim. This journal does a great job at connecting poverty and stigma together to show how they have an adverse effect on mental illness recovery. The author emphasizes the call for action to create better treatment plans for patients. As stated in the journal, a lot of medical professionals prescribe patients medications based on their socioeconomic standing and their insurance, which in turn makes it so that these patients don’t receive the medications they actually need ultimately making them get a worse standard of care than that of someone with a higher socioeconomic standing. I think this article will be very beneficial at asserting my claim.
Quotes –
“He suggests that the increased rate of mental illness associated with low socioeconomic status may be explained by a social-economic-stress model in which the stress associated with adverse circumstances such as poverty, unemployment, and inability to afford safe housing influences the development of mental illness. In a similar vein, Goldberg (2005) says that poor people are more likely to face threatening, humiliating, and entrapping life events that undermine their self-image and leave them feeling deprived of control over their lives”.
“The greater the degree of poverty, the greater is the number of unmet needs of individuals with SMI (Wiersma, 2006). More unmet needs are associated with lower quality of life and with poorer health (Wiersma, 2006)”.
