Misdiagnosis In Mental Illnesses

Of society’s many issues, one of the most pressing in terms of public health is the common occurrence of misdiagnosis in mental health illnesses. Mental illnesses, more specifically looking at mental illnesses in adolescents, are being too frequently misdiagnosed and there are patients being given inaccurate prescriptions that often worsen their symptoms and can have lasting negative effects on their health. The concept of misdiagnosed mental illness and inaccurate medications being prescribed is an issue where some say government regulation of the medications is necessary, while others say government regulation is unnecessary. Several studies have been conducted to determine the effects of misdiagnosis in mental illness for cases of bipolar

Courtney Lopresti, in her article, “Why a Mental Health Misdiagnosis Can Be Dangerous,” goes into depth about how damaging a misdiagnosis can prove to be. One of her first points is that a misdiagnosis can lead to an incorrect prescription which could inevitably make the mental illness someone is suffering from so much worse. Lopresti gives the example of how mistaking someone who is bipolar from suffering from depression and putting them on antidepressants can exacerbate the illness, sending them into manic episodes. Another point she brings up is that therapy for a misdiagnosis can also prove to be harmful for patients. She uses the example of mistaking someone with OCD for someone with anxiety and how the encouragement for talking things out could worsen the obsessive behavior exhibited. Her last valid point is that patients whose symptoms are misdiagnosed and face the consequences of dealing with worsening symptoms may lose all hope. In losing their hope, Lopresti states that patients with mental illnesses would then rather spend their lives enduring their severe symptoms over risking another visit to a medical professional who might make their situation worse than it was to begin with. However, there are some who say that government regulation of prescriptions are

John Goodman, in his article, “How Government Regulations Is Undermining Mental Health Care”, discusses how the business of medical care is twisted and how the government, in imposing regulations on mental health care, is creating a situation where the medical care providers lose interest in actually addressing the needs of the mentally ill. Goodman mentions a previous publishing of his which touches on the issue in medical care of how health plans are manufactured to draw in the healthy and turn away the ill; the ones who are actually suffering and actually need medical treatment. He provides statistics from medical journals that detail the twenty million Americans suffering with substance abuse and the forty two point five million adults living with a mental illness who are all not getting the proper care they require. Another point Goodman makes is that while treatment options are provided in brochures and such, many people seeking legitimate treatment will find that those options are inaccessible to them for a variety of reasons with the main source of those reasons being the government regulations placed on medical care. Government regulations on medicines and other medical care can be beneficial in some situations, but in others, it can prove disadvantageous to