Mental health awareness’ impact on healthcare systems is multifaceted. While mental health awareness has helped reduce stigma, improve literacy and help-seeking intentions as well as lead to an increase in help-seeking intentions, healthcare workers may find themselves overwhelmed and at risk of burnout/PTSD – especially those working in low-income countries with limited support policies and limited support available – with serious ramifications for patient care delivered as a whole and society as a whole.
The current pandemic has cast mental health into sharp relief, prompting many more individuals to discuss their difficulties and seek treatment. Increased dialogue has helped lower stigmatism among younger generations in particular; however, cultural prejudice still prevents some groups from seeking help; furthermore, media portrayals may make severe symptoms seem normal, discouraging those with more mild symptoms from seeking assistance.
Awareness efforts appear to correlate with increases in rates of symptoms at a societal level, leading to “prevalence inflation” (Anderson et al. 2020; Guzman-Holst et al. 2022). This can cause overinterpretation of these symptoms by leading people to believe they have mental illness when in fact they might just be feeling stressed or tired.
This phenomenon can become an endless loop: more people seeking treatment and believing they have mental health issues leads to even more people claiming they do, leading to further symptoms and an even greater rise in treatment needs – leading to further overburdened healthcare systems and strain on society at large, who must cope with increased symptoms without proper medical solutions or an understanding of their causes.
Mental health challenges have become an increasing burden in lower-income communities, with minorities bearing an inordinate share of unmet needs due to underreporting, misclassification of data, and systemic barriers which prevent progress towards addressing health inequities, leaving marginalized groups underserved and overlooked when policymaking and resource allocation occurs.
Mental health awareness and its effect on healthcare is an increasingly complex subject that needs more examination and investigation in order to comprehend fully. Healthcare leaders must immediately implement and enforce appropriate measures to safeguard the mental health of healthcare employees in a sustainable manner. Promoting mental health awareness and providing healthcare workers with adequate resources to provide ongoing care can reduce the risk of long-term psychological damage. At this critical juncture in mental health care reform, it is vitally important that we acknowledge its complexity while simultaneously avoiding stigmatizing individuals with unmet mental health needs in underserved communities. Interdisciplinary collaboration is key in order to further investigate its implications and develop ways for making positive changes.
