OPINION | PATTY GIBSON: Erase the stigma

Mental health deserves better care

As a psychiatrist in Arkansas, I appreciated the editorial on "manly men" in the Nov. 21 edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which did a great job discussing the complicated issue of real men taking care of their mental health.

The editorial did an excellent job of presenting the high cost of stigma in our society discouraging men from seeking help for mental health issues. Unfortunately, there is still a general attitude that mental disorders are a weakness that do not deserve the same treatment approach as physical disorders. Prior to the pandemic, statistics showed that less than 30 percent of the people who needed mental health treatment received it.

Since the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 40 percent of adults reported anxiety, depression, or trauma; 13 percent admitted increasing substance use; and 11 percent reported seriously considering suicide in the prior 30 days. Also, the CDC reported the percentage of emergency-room visits for mental health problems have increased by 24 percent in children 5-11 years old, and by 31 percent in adolescents 12-17 years old.

Good news from the pandemic is the widespread use of telemedicine. However, as the editor correctly said, there is a significant shortage of mental health providers of all types.

One solution that is rarely discussed is to increase the treatment of mental health symptoms in primary-

care clinics.

Behavioral Health Integration is an evidence-based model of treatment which increases the capacity of non-mental health providers to provide care of patients with emotional symptoms.

There are many patients who could benefit from brief behavioral health treatment in primary care and do not need to wait to see a mental health specialist. By providing this continuum of care, the access to mental health care is increased for everyone.

The American Medical Association has recently created an AMA-BHI Collaborative to increase this type of care. Many clinics in Arkansas are trying to implement behavioral health integration, but there are multiple barriers because this type of care is very different from the type of care our systems are providing.

Arkansas Behavioral Health Integration Network is a new nonprofit organization that has formed to be a collaborative source of training to promote this type of treatment process. Anyone who would like more information may contact us through our website www.ABHINetwork.org, or contact me directly at patty.gibson@abhinetwork.org.

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Patty Gibson, M.D., practices psychiatry in Little Rock.

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