Overview: Mental Illness

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Mental Illness Overview

Mental illness is an umbrella term for a number of illnesses, including but not limited to:

depression
anxiety disorder
schizophrenia

Mental illnesses may be of brief or long duration, and may be mild or severe. Episodes of mental illness may occur only once, or may recur many times during a person's lifetime.

Mental illnesses can lead to changes in behaviour, mood and perception. They may make it difficult for a person to participate in some areas of life such as work, personal relationships or leisure activities.

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Statistics

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, in 2004/05:

About 1 in 10 Australians (roughly 2.1 million) has a long-term mental or behavioural problem

19% of Australians aged over 18 use medication for mental wellbeing ( 23.9% of females and 14.3% of males)
- This use is more common for people aged over 65 (24.1%)
- 5.2% of people use antidepressants
- 4.5% use sleeping tablets or capsules

5.2% of the population have a disabling psychiatric condition
- Of those people, 48.4% have severe or profound core activity limitation - meaning that they sometimes or always need help with self-care, mobility or communication
- 36.7% of these people also have a sensory or speech disorder
- 32.6% also have physical or diverse disabilities
- In those under 18 years, 83.9% also have an intellectual disability

In June 2004, 25.4% of the people recieving a Disability Support pension from the Australian Government had a psychiatric or psychological condition

Mental or behavioural disorder was the underlying cause of death in 574 deaths in 2004 (an age-standardised rate of 2.7 per 100,000)
- This figure does not include suicides
- Most of these deaths were due to abuse of psychoactive substances such as alcohol or heroin

Around 25% of persons with an anxiety, affective or substance abuse disorder also have at least one other mental illness (see Dual Diagnosis
- Among those with psychotic disorders, 30% have a history of alcohol abuse or dependence, 25.1% of cannabis abuse, and 13.2% of other substance abuse or dependence

Prevalence of other diseases and conditions is also more prevalent amongst people with a long-term mental or behavioural problem than among the general population
- 23.4% of people with mental or behavioural disorder have arthritis (compared to 14.9% of the general population)
- 16% have asthma (compared to 10.2% in the general population)
- 6.3% have heart, stroke or vascular diseases (3.8% of general population)

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