Psychiatric individuals are more likely to have multiple medical problems: Study

LONDON: According to a study, those who have major mental health concerns are more likely to have physical ailments such as metabolic diseases, hypertension, epilepsy, respiratory, vascular, kidney, and gastrointestinal diseases, as well as cancer.
The study involved a thorough examination of data from 1,94,123 psychiatric patients from around the world, with a comparison to 76,60,590 individuals in control groups.
Multimorbidity occurs when a person is affected by any combination of chronic disease and at least one other physical health condition, and the researchers discovered that mental patients were 1.84 times more likely than the control group to report multimorbidity.
As of 2019, almost one billion individuals worldwide were suffering from a mental disorder, making it the largest cause of disability. According to Mind, a UK site, one in every four persons in England will suffer from a mental health condition at some point during the year.
Previous study has discovered that a considerable proportion of people in need of mental health services do not have access to effective, inexpensive, and high-quality mental health care, particularly in low-income nations. For instance, 71 per cent of individuals with psychosis worldwide do not receive necessary mental health services, with a vast disparity between high-income and low-income countries.
Lead author Lee Smith, Professor of Public Health at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), Cambridge, said, “Mental health underpins our individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build relationships, and shape the world we live in. It is evident from our research that individuals with severe mental illness are at a significantly higher risk of experiencing physical multimorbidity.
“This complex relationship between severe mental illness and physical multimorbidity has far-reaching implications, including decreased treatment compliance, increased risk of treatment failure, increased treatment costs, relapsing disease, worsening prognosis, and reduced life expectancy.
“Poor clinical management of physical comorbidities in people with mental disorders exacerbates the issue, leading to an increased burden on individuals, their communities, and healthcare systems. A holistic approach is urgently needed to improve the physical, mental, and social outcomes of individuals dealing with severe mental illness and physical multimorbidity.” (ANI)