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Complexities in Caring for Older Adults: Challenges and Opportunities for Improvement
It has been widely reported that individuals with chronic behavioral health conditions experience significantly diminished life expectancies (Chesney et al., 2014). This tragic phenomenon may be attributed, at least in part, to comorbid medical conditions commonly associated with the aging process....
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Lessons Learned in Effectively Advancing Co-Occurring Competent Care
Recently, there has been great emphasis on enhancing organizational co-occurring competency and for good reason. Climbing overdose and suicide rates, with bi-directional contribution from mental health (MH) and substance use disorders (SUD), reflect our need to do better serving those with multiple...
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Access for All: Achieving Behavioral Health Equity in Healthcare
Health equity is a fundamental principle that aims to ensure that all individuals have an equal opportunity to achieve optimal health, regardless of their social or economic circumstances. Behavioral health equity refers to the fair and just distribution of behavioral health resources, supports,...
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Severe, Long-Term Mental Illness: What Does it Take to Live Well?
Typical images of people with severe, long-term mental illnesses are misleading. We think not of people who, despite mental illness, have lives that they find satisfying and meaningful but of homeless people dressed in rags pushing shopping carts with all their belongings and sleeping on heating...
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Improving Medication Adherence in People with Serious Mental Illness
Psychotropic medication nonadherence in populations with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) can lead to inadequate symptom control, reduced treatment effectiveness, significant relapse risk, and increased risk of death (Semahegn, 2020). Nonadherence to medication also results in increased healthcare...
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Preventing Suicide: Addressing Trauma-Related Symptoms in Individuals with Serious Mental Illness
The incidence of mental illness is pervasive in the United States, a recent estimate suggesting it impacts more than one in five adults (NIMH, 2023). While “mental illness” is a category that embodies all diagnoses, a subset of this category, serious mental illness (i.e., schizophrenia spectrum...
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Understanding and Detecting the Signs of Serious Mental Illness and Suicidal Ideation
Serious mental illness and suicidal ideation are two of the largest problems in American healthcare today. In fact, while one-in-five American adults have any mental illness, approximately 1 in 20 adults in the U.S. are affected by serious mental illness, or a mental illness that significantly...
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Helping Families Cope with Serious Mental Illness: Maternal vs Social Work Instincts
I am a Social Worker. I am also a mom of an adult child with SMI, specifically bi-polar disorder. My child is 23 and I pray that she welcomes God into her life. That’s the mom in me talking. As a social worker, I want her to get a job, find a great partner who will love her, and become as...
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St. Francis Friends of the Poor’s Serious Mental Illness Programs in the Community
Picture this; you wake up on a therapeutic mattress and push aside your shades to catch a glimpse of the city’s hustle and bustle. Next, you reach into your mini fridge for a bottle of water and begin your day thereafter. You walk downstairs, locking your private room behind you, and check out...
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Addressing the Intersection between Severe Mental Illness and Homelessness
Services for the UnderServed (S:US) is one the largest community-based health and human services organizations in New York State that works intentionally daily to right societal imbalances by providing comprehensive and culturally responsive services. We provide services to people living with...
