 Mercy Primary Care Center was recently awarded a $20,000 grant from Metro Healthcare Services for our mental health program. In line with our commitment to improving chronic disease management for the uninsured, we are dedicated to finding optimal ways to diagnose and treat depression to improve the lives of our patients, their families, and our community. In previous research we found that over 40% of MPCC patients are depressed and that without dedicated screening efforts some would go undiagnosed resulting in them not receive necessary treatment. Further, we have seen the positive impact of screening and treatment for depression and look forward to utilizing this funding to ensure continued benefit into the future. The funds will be used to develop a process to effectively screen for depression in our population and design a replicable program to provide the benefits of counseling in a cost effective manner.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health:
- An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older - about one in four adults - suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year.
- About 20.9 million American adults, or about 9.5 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year, have a mood disorder.
- Depressive disorders often co-occur with anxiety disorders and substance abuse.
- Bipolar disorder, the most serious type of depression, affects about 5.7 million American adults, or about 2.6 percent of the U.S. population in any given year.
- More than 90 percent of people who commit suicide have a diagnostic mental disorder, most commonly a depressive disorder or a substance abuse disorder.
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