Health care services and mental health services - Research Paper Example

Mental health promotion and mental illnesses’ diagnoses and treatment are essential components of family medicine in the American health care. Family physicians receive continued medical education and residency training in order to better manage mental health problems in people of all age groups. Early recognition of problems is made possible with the help of continuity of care inherent in the family medicine. Family physicians are best-suited to recognize the problems and make adequate interventions in the family system since they treat the whole family.

Family physicians are particularly important because they are also in a position to give treatment to the individuals who tend to avoid the traditional mental health services due to social stigma linked with the treatment of mental illnesses. Many mental health issues are neither recognized frequently nor they are treated adequately. Therefore, mental illnesses’ recognition and treatment are some of the significant challenges for the primary care physicians that are responsible for most services related to mental health care.

Results of a national mental health care survey suggested that up to 18 per cent of the people surveyed with or without a mental health disorder DSM-IV’s diagnosis were treated in a one year period and 52 per cent of the visits took place in the sector of all primary care or general medical care (Pincus et al., 1998). Primary care patients with a psychiatric disorder are between 11 per cent and 36 per cent (AAPF, 2015) and a survey of mental health conditions in the practices of urban family medicine suggests that more than 40 per cent of the research participants met the conditions set for a mental health disorder (National Ambulatory Medical Survey, 2008).

Traditionally, mental health services are carved out by the managed care organizations from the primary care. They place the mental health services in