The Paradox of Mental Health: Over-Treatment and Under-Recognition
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The PLOS Medicine editors discuss the paradox of mental health, where over-diagnosis and treatment of some mental health issues exists alongside profound under-recognition of mental health conditions in the developing world.
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Efforts have been made to increase the accessibility of services for mental health care in many countries.
“Efforts have been made to increase the accessibility of services for mental health care in many countries [17, 27].”
From Trends in psychiatric diagnoses, medications and psychological therapies in a large Swedish region: A population-based study (2020) · cites this paper as [17]
The Abstract (page unavailable) describes organizations working to raise the profile of global mental health and an agenda for integrating mental health care into other health services in the developing world. It does not establish that efforts to make mental health services more accessible have been undertaken in many countries. (LLM, conf=0.78)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIsolated evidence from various parts of the health care suggests that help-seeking for mental health problems has increased in many developed countries.
“Isolated evidence from various parts of the health care suggests that help-seeking for mental health problems has increased in many developed countries [17–20, 31, 32].”
From Trends in psychiatric diagnoses, medications and psychological therapies in a large Swedish region: A population-based study (2020) · cites this paper as [17]
The paper discusses over-diagnosis, including an increase in ADHD diagnoses among US children, and under-recognition of mental health conditions in the developing world (Abstract; page unavailable). Neither those passages nor searches for help-seeking and mental-health service-use trends address whether help-seeking increased in many developed countries. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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Cites
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- Authors
- Editors, T. P. M.
- Corresponding author
- The PLOS Medicine Editors
- Venue
- PLoS Medicine
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2013-05-28
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- e1001456
- ISSN
- 1549-1277 (ISSN-L)
- 1549-1676
- PMC
- PMC3665855
- OpenAlex
- W2354869851
- Cited by
- 56
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 5.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS Medicine (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- QUT ePrints (Queensland University of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychology and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Keywords
- mental health, overtreatment, under-recognition, overdiagnosis, access to mental health care, developing countries, mental health services
- MeSH terms
- Mental Disorders, Cooperative Behavior, Humans, Mental Health, Mental Health Services, Predictive Value of Tests, Global Health, Treatment Outcome, Developed Countries, Interdisciplinary Communication
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