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Mental Illness Facts
FACTS ABOUT SEVERE
MENTAL ILLNESS
Severe mental illnesses are brain disorders,
like epilepsy, Huntingtons disease, and Parkinsons disease. They include schizophrenia, manic depressive illness, severe depression,
obsessive-compulsive disorder, and panic disorder.
Brain disorders are biologically based. They have no link to character,
child-rearing, or other individual or familial behaviors.
Approximately 2.8 percent of the United States population,
or 5 million Americans, will suffer from an acute episode of a severe mental illness in any given year. One out of every five
families is or will be affected by a serious brain disorder.
For people with severe mental illnesses, the chances
of obtaining significant benefit through treatment have never been better. The success rate for treating schizophrenia is
60 percent. The success rate for treatment of bipolar disorder is 65 percent, and for major depression, 80 percent. Panic
disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive disorder have success rates of 80 percent and 75 percent, respectively. These success rates
compare favorably to a 41 percent success rate for the Cardiovascular treatment, Angioplasty.
The costs of treating
severe mental illnesses are comparable or less than costs to treat other serious illnesses. For example, the total direct
cost in 1990 of treating a person with schizophrenia was $7158 compared with $7725 for treating a person with severe diabetes.
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