Mental Health and Behavioural Changes Due to Alcohol and Smoking Habits

This report discusses the behavioural changes that occur due to alcohol and smoking habits in people of all age groups. It also covers theoretical perspectives that have been applied to support behaviour change, potential barriers due to mental illness, and ways to overcome them.

Mental health- nursing

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
The behaviour change seen in specific population....................................................................1
Theoretical perspectives that have been applied to support behaviour change.........................2
Potential barriers due to mental illness......................................................................................4
Ways to overcome these barriers............................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The health behaviour that is discussed in this report is consumption of alcohol and
smoking which causes mental illness. This in turn covers a wide range of mental health
condition like disorders that can affect the physical and mental condition of a person. Some
of the outcome that are caused due to mental illness is depression, anxiety disorder and other
behavioural changes (Erickson, Mackenzie, Menec & Bailis, 2017) . The mental health
conditions can cause mental illness when they symptoms and signs cause frequent stress and
depression. The symptoms of mental illness affect the behaviour of a person. Thus, it is
recommended that consumption of alcohol and smoking habits can be prevented by paying
attention to it regularly and offering routine medical care to a person. In this report the
behavioural changes that occur to smoking and alcohol consumption in people of all age
group are discussed. Some of the theoretical perspectives that have been applied to support
behaviour change are also discussed (Erickson, Mackenzie, Menec & Bailis, 2017) . There
are various potential barriers that are faced by people due to mental illness are discussed and
the ways to overcome are also listed.
The behaviour change seen in specific population
The behaviour that is commonly seen these days is higher consumption of alcohol and
smoking habits, it is seen in majority of people from youngsters to old age people. The area
of concern in this report is about acute mental illness that can be caused due to these
baehaviour (Denneson, Cromer, Williams, Pisciotta & Dobscha, 2017). It is important to
treat this immediately as it can have some sever effects. It is a complex medical condition as
it may causes disorders ad can degrade the quality of life. It directly affects the personality of
a person. These habits affect the people of all age group. It results in causing anxiety,
disorders attack or depression. The common reason seen in individual for mental illness is
mixture of biological, psychological and environmental factors. Mental health disorder occurs
due to lack of control or support. From all the statistics, it was found that mental illness can
be seen in people of all age group (Denneson, Cromer, Williams, Pisciotta & Dobscha,
2017). It is seen it children of age 6 to 12 as they develop serious depression due to pressure
or lack of love. It is also seen in adolescent’s age as they experience mental disorder due to
peer pressure. These habits are increasing and the reason behind this is social media as there

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is no strong control. Apart from that, people between ages 22 to 44 also suffer from mental
illness and the reason behind this is increasing stress due to family, education or relative.
Depression is common in older adults as they are more likely to suffer from sadness. The
outcome of these is related to physical health as well as human behaviour. With increasing
stress an individuals have adopted wrong habits like smoking so that stress could be reduced
(Davis, Carter, Myers & Rocca, 2018). The reason behind this behaviour in all age group is
due to consumption of alcohol and taboo, stress and depression. It is seen that increasing
habits may causes disease which indicated long term depression. From the survey, it was
found that mental illness is increasing in ageing population rapidly. The risk factor of mental
illness is experienced mostly by older people as they have life stress and all causes loss like
reduced mobility, chronic pain and other health care problems. It is important to cure this
behaviour as they can cause negative impacts. It is important to treat the individual suffering
from mental illness so that it doesn’t cause future effects. If considering short term concern of
mental health it is seen that it causes people to be alienated from their peers due to their
behaviour (Acu, 2018). The long term instability due to mental illness causes people to
commit suicide. Thus, it is important to take some steps so that acute mental health disorder
can be treated.
Theoretical perspectives that have been applied to support behaviour
change
In the views of (Acu, 2018), there is a nursing theory that explains the behavioural changes
related to mental illness. It covers the ways through which recovery could be done. It
suggested ways through which individual can deal with mental illness. The theory suggested
that people suffering from mental illness should have proper assessment so that they could
recover at faster rate. From the basis of theoretical perspective, four components are included
that helps in improving the overall condition (Dekker, Tieman, Vinke, van der Ende,
Verhulst & Juffer, 2017). The first component deals with the individual itself as their
activities affect their overall behaviour. The second component covers the environmental
conditions in which they are living. Mental illness can be due to discrimination in the society
or inequalities that can cause depression and which in turn causes mental disorder. The third
component is the nurses that monitor the patient regularly. They make sure the stress and
inequality could be removed. Lastly, nursing theory plays a significant role as nurses support
patients by offering care.

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According to (Dekker, Tieman, Vinke, van der Ende, Verhulst & Juffer, 2017), to improve
mental health few stages need to be followed. The first step is making sure that there is a way
through which patient can communicate effectively with the nurses. It helps nurse to learn
about patients so that they can take steps to offer satisfaction and offer healthy life. The
quality of care is offered so that they could recover rapidly (Australian government, 2010).
The main focus of nurses was to make patient independent so that they can recover faster.
In the views of (Bruce, Gribble, Turner, Hubbard-Turner, Simon & Thomas, 2017), While
understanding theoretical perspective within mental illness few barriers were faced. It was
found that people suffering from mental illness suffer from physical illness which causes
future illness. The morality rate is also less in patients that makes difficult for nurses to
handle the situation. Additionally, nurses face the challenge in managing the patients as they
suffer from stigma and discrimination, high aggression. Sometimes lack of time and
resources affect the health of patient. Some of the steps that need to be taken to improve the
health of patient suffering from mental illness is keeping patients in a positive environment so
that link between wellbeing and mental illness could be improved (Australian government,
2010). Nurses just act a supporter needed to care for patients in a creative way so that they
get strength to overcome from barriers.
In the views of (Annear, Keeling, Wilkinson, Cushman, Gidlow & Hopkins, 2014), it is
important to understand the recovery ways from mental health illness. This can be resolved
by offering social space to people so that they get positive energy about their life. The
recovery process are designed so that positive energy could be built this could be done by
removing discrimination from the society. Nurses use resilience method so that patients live
in a stable condition. Plans are deployed after knowing the condition of patient; they launch
programs so that isolation could be resolved. Apart from that, various motivational tools are
used so that better decisions could be made (Annear, Keeling, Wilkinson, Cushman, Gidlow
& Hopkins, 2014). It is recommended that nurse maintain friendly relation with the patient so
that the interaction could be improved. It also helps in focusing upon the health status of
patient so that supportive relation could be maintained. It focuses on building therapeutic
relation so that patients concerns are recognised in a better way.

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Potential barriers due to mental illness
With the increasing concern of mental health illness, there are various barriers faced by the
people. Some of the barriers faced by people due to mental illness and their solution are
discussed below.
It is commonly seen that people are terrified of being discriminated due to their mental health
status. The current data should that people suffering from mental illness are treated as weak
and are often misrepresented in the society. The major barrier faced is due to the old aged
people as they refuse to take treatment (Frost, et. al, 2017). The other main concern of barrier
is financial issue. The cost of drugs is very high and additionally they are available in limited
quantity. Thus, increased treatment cost is the biggest barrier that stops an individual to take
mental health treatment (Hancock, Scanlan, Gillespie, Smith-Merry & Yen, 2017).
Apart from that, it is true that mental health treatment is a time consuming process. Thus,
people undertaking this treatment don’t believe that therapy is working for them or not. All
the above mentioned barriers can be resolved by the barrier to access the care giver is
difficult. There is a very limited availability of mental health professionals. From the survey,
it was found that in less than 20% of the countries they do not have any medication available.
The affordability is also limited as it requires high cost of treatment that to for a longer time
period. Apart from that, countries don’t even provide extra benefits for mental illness as they
are not much aware about its consequence (Frost, et. al, 2017). The other barriers are policy
limitation and lack of education, that s limited knowledge about mental illness this prevents
an individual to know that they are suffering from mental illness or seeking treatment.
Multiple studies have found that stigma related to mental illness often prevents patients from
seeking and adhering to treatment, and later patients attempt to distance themselves from the
labels that make them away from social exclusion (Hancock, Scanlan, Gillespie, Smith-
Merry & Yen, 2017).
Ways to overcome these barriers
The barriers could be resolved by encountering laws and offering professional treatment to
the patients. The facility of public education should be started as it helps an individual to be
away from all the criminal activities (Loos, et. al, 2017). The refusal of taking treatment issue
can be resolved if patients are made aware about the danger it may cause to them in later life.
The financial barrier can be resolved as they are various care centres that support people to
fulfil their financial needs (Gibbons, Weiss, Frank & Kupfer, 2016). One such is affordable

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care act that has helped patients by offering financial support without insurance. The issue of
intervention can be resolved by keeping the patients aware about the improvements they are
facing due to the therapy. The barriers of treatment can be resolved by removing
discrimination and stigma from the society (Gibbons, Weiss, Frank & Kupfer, 2016). It is
seen that people with mental illness often face the consequences of societal stigma that can be
severe; this can be diminished if self-esteem of a person is improved. The symptoms of
shame and concealment can be lowered by offering those guidelines (Harvey, et. al, 2017).

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Conclusion
There are various barriers that are faced by people in undertaking treatment of mental
illness like financial barrier, issue of getting managed care. Mental illness also faces issues in
primary care as even relatives and family members fail to take care of eth patient. In this
report, the concern that was selected is mental health illness that is seen in people of all age
group. It basically arses due to stress, discrimination and inequality in the society. The
behavioural changes that are seen in all the age group people due to mental illness are
discussed. Along with the theoretical perspective that can be applied to improve the overall
condition. The potential barriers that are faced by patients and nurses are discussed along
with the ways through which it can be overcome are discussed. Thus, it can be stated that
mental illness is an issue that take time to recover and requires patience to recover from it.

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References
Acu. (2018). Mental Health. Retrieved from https://libguides.acu.edu.au/c.php?
g=233988&p=4347739.
Annear, M., Keeling, S., Wilkinson, T., Cushman, G., Gidlow, B., & Hopkins, H. (2014).
Environmental influences on healthy and active ageing: A systematic review. Ageing
& Society, 34(4), 590-622.
Australian government. (2010). Principles of recovery oriented mental health practice.
Retrieved from
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/mental-pubs-i-
nongov-toc~mental-pubs-i-nongov-pri.
Bruce, C. M., Gribble, P. A., Turner, M. J., Hubbard-Turner, T., Simon, J. E., & Thomas, A.
C. (2017). Number of knee and ankle injuries is associated with poor physical but not
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