Disorderly Conduct: U.S. survey finds high rates of mental illness
By Bruce Bower
About one in four people develops at least one mental disorder in any given year, and nearly one in two people does so at some time in their lives. Most of the cases are mild, however, and don’t require treatment. Those are some of the findings from the latest survey of mental health in the United States.
The national assessment, conducted every 10 years, finds that each year around 1 in 17 people experiences at least one mental disorder so severely that the researchers say it requires immediate treatment. However, most of these people don’t seek treatment or they receive poor-quality care, say epidemiologist Ronald C. Kessler of Harvard Medical School in Boston and his colleagues.