Education about Mental Illness

Running head: EDUCATION ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS 1
Education about mental illness
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Chamberlain College of Nursing
Course Number: Course Name
Term Month and Year

MENTAL ILLNESS
Education about mental illness
One in every five adults suffers from mental illness in U.S. Depression and anxiety is the
most common form of mental illness. Most people do not seek the right treatment at the right
time and treat people differently because unawareness about mental illness and stigma associated
with mental illness. Expanding resource to educate public about mental illness is important to
minimize the negative attitude help due to stigmatizing attitude towards people.
Context
The main position for this paper is that stigma linked to mental disorder is rising and with
this, people with mental problem have become more vulnerable. There are many evidences that
demonstrate the public stigma. Parcesepe and Cabassa (2013) argue that it is a barrier that
discourages common people in United States from seeking care in mental health care system.
Stigma or discrimination against mental illness further results in reduced autonomy, segregation,
little engagement in mental health care and worst treatment outcome. The importance of
educating people about mental illness is also evidenced from the fact that stigmatizing beliefs
restrict opportunities and reduce independence. Other adverse impact that stigma has on people
with mental illness includes avoidance, withholding help, coercive treatment and segregated
institutions. Hence, the thesis statement for the paper is that education to take informed decision
against mental illness and reduce stereotypes (Link et al., 2015).
1st Pro-Point
Educational resource related to mental illness is critical to reduce public stigma of mental
illness. This ground is further proved by the evidence by Choudhry et al. (2016) that many
people stop contacting services once they are diagnosed with mental illness. This implies that
attitude and beliefs about mental illness are shaped by personal knowledge about mental illness.