RESEARCH WEEKLY: Educational Public Health Approach to Mental Illness: The Ineffectiveness of Mental Health First Aid By Morré Taylor Editor’s note: Starting July 16, anyone living in the United States will be able to dial 988 to access the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a national mental health emergency hotline available for anyone in crisis. Each Research Weekly published in July will focus on some aspect of the 988 implementation. (July 13, 2022) For the last 50 years, the primary public health approach to addressing mental illness has been to allocate resources to education and prevention efforts. One example of this approach is Mental Health First Aid (MHFA)— an educational course designed to help people identify and respond to signs of mental illness with the goal of encouraging bystanders to intervene if they encounter someone experiencing a mental health crisis. According to a recent report from the Manhattan Institute, however, this approach is relatively ineffective at supporting people with serious mental illness who require comprehensive psychiatric treatment and crisis response services. Understanding how best to approach a crisis situation and providing adequate care for those with mental illness is more important now than ever, highlighting the potential value of the 988 rollout that is happening this week. A researcher at the Manhattan Institute investigated the outcomes of the MHFA course by reviewing two decades worth of preexisting literature on its effectiveness, which overwhelmingly showed no evidence that MHFA successfully helped people with serious mental illness improve their mental health nor encouraged treatment. Additionally, despite the claim that MHFA teaches everyday people to assist those experiencing a mental health crisis, the course also proved to be minimally effective at encouraging bystander intervention. For example, the most cited publication reviewed in the report found that although MHFA trainees felt more confident in their ability to help people experiencing a mental health crisis, this confidence did not result in higher instances of helping people during a crisis. Unintended consequences of MHFA According to the report, while some trainees may feel more compelled to offer their help to those with mental illness, the course’s emphasis on bystander intervention may cause MHFA trainees to inappropriately intervene during crisis situations, which on rare occasion, can be dangerous and even violent if the crisis involves someone with untreated serious mental illness. Additionally, the author notes that MHFA can potentially cause trainees to over diagnose life problems as mental disorders, which indirectly causes harm to those who have an actual mental illness. For example, one study found that those who did not report any mental health problems prior to the MHFA training suddenly reported experiencing mental health issues after the training. Overall ineffectiveness of MHFA According to the author, MHFA’s prioritization of educating the masses over treating people with existing mental illness does nothing to help people with serious mental illness. Rates of mental illness have not decreased, meanwhile, rates of suicide are increasing and many people with serious mental illness continue to maintain a low quality of life that is disproportionately categorized by homelessness and incarceration. The author largely attributes this lack of improvement to the developers of MHFA’s inaccurate perception that the general public’s lack of understanding about mental illness is the primary problem. In actuality, families of people serious mental illness can often identify signs of mental distress but struggle to obtain the appropriate treatment services to care for their loved one due to institutional barriers to treatment. Implications The very nature of MHFA’s approach to mental health ignores the institutional barriers to managing a mental health crisis, such as treatment inaccessibility for those most at risk of crisis, the national shortage of psychiatric beds, the lack of specialty health-care providers and poor insurance coverage, which is more likely experienced by people with serious mental illness. The author notes that funding mental health programs whose goal is to treat existing cases of serious mental illness can help people with serious mental illness and their families bypass many of these barriers. For example, the new mental health hotline number, 988, will connect people experiencing a mental health crisis to mental health professionals and treatment services, ideally ensuring that people with serious mental illness have access to resources that can adequately address their mental health needs. References Gorman, C. D. (June 2022). Mental Health First Aid: Assessing the evidence for a public health approach to mental illness. Manhattan Institute. Morré Taylor is a research intern at the Treatment Advocacy Center. View as Webpage To receive Research Weekly directly in your email inbox on a weekly basis, click here. Questions? Contact us at [email protected] Research Weekly is a summary published as a public service of the Treatment Advocacy Center and does not necessarily reflect the findings or positions of the organization or its staff. Full access to research summarized may require a fee or paid subscription to the publications. The Treatment Advocacy Center does not solicit or accept funds from pharmaceutical companies. Treatment Advocacy Center | 200 N Glebe Rd, Ste 801, Arlington, VA 22203 Unsubscribe [email protected] Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by [email protected] powered by Try email marketing for free today!