Survey: Mental Illness May Be Davalued By Some People.

MedPage Today (4/1, Smith) reported, “People said they would pay more to avoid some serious medical conditions than they would to avoid severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and depression,” according to survey results published in the April issue of the journal Psychiatric Services. In the survey involving some 1,000 randomly chosen US adults, “respondents recognized that the two mental conditions had a health burden comparable to or higher than diabetes, below-the-knee amputation or partial blindness, according to Dylan Smith, PhD, of Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, NY, and colleagues.” Notably, “for a comparable benefit in terms of quality of life, participants in the study were willing to pay about 40% less to avoid the psychiatric illnesses,” the study authors reported.

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— “Mental Illness Devalued in Survey,” Michael Smith, MedPage Today, March 31, 2012.

Posted in In The News.