Mental Health Promotion - Mood Disorders

MENTAL HEALTH PROMOTION

Many studies have been conducted to determine how to prevent mood disorders and suicide, but prediction of sui-cide risk in clinical practice remains difficult. Programs that use an educational approach designed to address the unique stressors that contribute to the increased incidence of depressive illness in women have had some success. These programs focus on increasing self-esteem and reduc-ing loneliness and hopelessness, which in turn decrease the likelihood of depression.

Efforts to improve primary care treatment of depression have built upon a chronic illness care model that includes patient self-management, or helping people be better pre-pared to deal with life issues and changes. This includes having a partnership with their provider, having a crisis or relapse prevention plan, creating a social support network, and making needed behavioral changes to promote health (Bachman, Swensen, Reardon, & Miller, 2006).

Because suicide is a leading cause of death among ado-lescents, prevention, early detection, and treatment are very important. Strengthening protective factors (those factors associated with a reduction in suicide risk) would improve the mental health of adolescents. Protective fac-tors include close parent–child relationships, academic achievement, family-life stability, and connectedness with peers and others outside the family. School-based pro-grams can be universal (general information for all students) or indicated (targeting young people at risk). Indicated or selective programs have been more successful than universal programs (Horowitz & Garber, 2006; Rapee et al., 2006). Likewise, screening for early detection of risk factors such as family strife, parental alcoholism or mental illness, history of fighting, and access to weapons in the home can lead to referral and early intervention.