If you suffer from driving phobia or other driving anxiety, you are certainly not alone. A recent report from the federal government discovered that one in five adults in the U.S. suffered from some type of mental health condition over the past year.
That’s a grand total of 45.6 million people.
A press release from SAMHSA highlighted some of the report’s overall findings:
- Among adults with mental illness in the past year, about 4 in 10 adults (38.2 percent of adults with mental illness) received mental health services during that period. Among those who had serious mental illness in the past year the rate of treatment was notably higher (59.6 percent).
- An estimated 8.5 million American adults (3.7 percent) had serious thoughts of suicide in the past year – among them 2.4 million (1.0 percent) made suicide plans and 1.1 million (0.5 percent) attempted suicide.
- Rates for substance dependence or abuse were far higher for those who had mental illness than for the adult population which did not have mental illness in the past year.
- A total of 2.0 million youth aged 12 to 17 (8.2 percent of this population) had experienced a major depressive episode in the past year. A major depressive episode is defined as a period of at least two weeks when a person experienced a depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities and had at least four of seven additional symptoms reflecting the criteria as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
But don’t forget the most important fact of all: Regardless of the type of mental health issue from which you may suffer, help is available in many forms.
Read the press release: http://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/advisories/1211273220.aspx
Check out the full report at SAMHSA: http://www.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2k11MH_FindingsandDetTables/index.aspx
