Essay On Mental Health

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Mental Health Assessments in Community Healthcare: A review
Nursing assessment of mental illness is a complex task – especially in the community health clinics that serve persons of minority groups, the indigent, and uninsured. According to the National Institute of Mental health (2007), and the Surgeon General (2001), approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population suffer from mental illness each year (as cited in Hunt, 2009). According to Genrich and McGuire (2009), the use of evidence-based screening for mental illness has been generally accepted in the clinical setting and is modifiable in different primary care settings (as cited in Russell, 2010). However, despite a general acceptance of mental health screening in primary care, less than 33 percent of primary care providers regularly screen their patients for mental illness (Russell, 2010). This is why community health nurses are tasked to assess patients in diverse environments and “need to accurately assess and identify factors in the psychological, social, and physical environment that may contribute to mental illness” (Hunt, 2009, p. 424).
This project summary is an appraisal of literature on the integration of mental health assessment in community based health organizations – namely the Florida Atlantic University Community Wellness Center, West Gate Wellness Center in West Palm Beach. Dr. Eugenia Millender is a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner at this location. This center provides primary health care and referrals; however, there is no screening for mental illness. The West Gate Wellness Center serves a diverse population which consists of Hispanic, African American, Haitian, and Non Hispanic Caucasian patients. The majority of these patients either has no ins...

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...entify the limitations on communication with nurses and GPs regarding referrals (2010).
This review summarizes specific recommendations to be utilized by clinicians in the Westgate Wellness Center. It imparts comprehensive knowledge on the assessment of mental illness in a community based setting. Many issues were identified that apply to the center such as, the difficulty in screening for mental health illnesses in minority groups, the need to deliver collaborative care to low-income and uninsured immigrants with mental illness, and the underutilization of clinical pathways for screening and referral by practitioners for mental illness. Therefore, the glaring need for mental health assessment at the Westgate Wellness Center is evident and the absence of this was found to be considerably detrimental to minorities, the uninsured, and low-income individuals.

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