Mental Health Treatment - Essay Example

Louis in the United States and Christchurch in New Zealand). There is a wide variation in the health care systems in these two countries, they differ in size and also have a varied mix of ethnic groups. It was found that the respondents in the two cities responded in an identical fashion about the reasons for not seeking mental care. Common reasons included “doubt about the need for professional help” (Wells et al., 1994), and attitudinal factors (like that they can manage without any medical help).

Less frequent reasons included, travel distance, cost, etc (Wells et al., 1994). Small or negligible reasons included sociodemographic factors (Wells et al., 1994.) With the help of theoretical models, it has been found that before seeking mental health treatment, help-seeking behavior of individuals goes through several stages. These include “experiencing symptoms, evaluating the severity and consequences of the symptoms, assessing whether treatment is required, assessing the feasibility of and options for treatment, and deciding whether to seek treatment” (Sareen et al., 2007). The barriers to the use of mental health care are mainly of two types: system-level structural factors (financial cost) and individual attitudinal factors (fear of being stigmatized) (Sareen et al., 2007). Sareen et al. . This study was able to show that respondents of the low-income group in the U.

S are more often likely to report a financial barrier when it comes to using mental health care when compared to those in countries with lesser restrictions to service accessibility. Dissatisfaction with the available mental health services was reported more often by respondents in the Netherlands than those in the U.S and Canada. However, contrary to the widely held belief that fear of stigmatization is a major barrier for not seeking care, the study showed that this was an infrequent reason.

There was a positive association in younger respondents with “fear of involuntary hospitalization and concerns about embarrassment from using mental health services” (Sareen et al., 2007). This might reflect a general lack of knowledge regarding mental illness and its treatment amongst youngsters. The use of drugs was associated with an embarrassment on utilizing mental health services. Therefore, this study showed that “attitudinal barriers to mental health service use are more common than structural barriers across countries with differing health care systems” (Sareen et al., 2007) with the exception that respondents of the low-income group in the U.

S are more often likely to report a financial barrier when it comes to using mental health care when compared to the other two countries. In Latin America mental illness is a big burden. Although nationalized health care systems are available in many Latin American countries many barriers to mental health care remains. Saldivia et al. (2004), made a study in the general population of Chile about the utilization of mental health service. The Chile Psychiatric Prevalence Study conducted