In this episode we are joined by Dr. Peter Cornish to discuss the barriers to accessing mental health support and some ideas for overcoming them.
A 2020 research article by Moroz et al.(2020) highlights the need for increased access to Mental Health and Addiction Services in Canada along with some of the barriers people face when accessing support for their mental health. In 2018, an estimated 5.3 million Canadians reported they needed support for their mental health in the previous year, of these, 1.2 million people reported having their needs met only partially (22%) and 1.1 million people (21%) reported their needs remained fully unmet. (Mental Health Care Needs, 2018, 2019).
Some documented barriers to accessing mental health and addictions services in Canada are:
Not knowing where to go for help (Mental Health Care Needs, 2018, 2019)
Long wait times (Mental Health in the Balance: Ending the Health Care Disparity in Canada, 2021)
Shortage of accessible mental health professionals (Mental Health Care Needs, 2018, 2019)
Lack of mental health service integration and government oversight (Mental Health in the Balance: Ending the Health Care Disparity in Canada, 2021)
Culture and language barriers (Mental Health Care Needs, 2018, 2019)
Concerns about stigma (Knaak et al., 2017)
Inequities due to geography or demographics (eg, rural communities, and Indigenous populations) (Mental Health Care Needs, 2018, 2019)
Cost (Mental Health in the Balance: Ending the Health Care Disparity in Canada, 2021)
When looking internationally, a recent Forbes article reports that across ten countries surveyed, an average of 58% of people experiencing a mental health problem or illness didn't seek help for clinical-level mental health challenges (Nietzel, 2021). The percentages varied from country to country and ranged from 45% not seeking professional help in the U.S and Australia to 81% not doing so in Nigeria (Nietzel, 2021).
Reasons for not seeking professional help the responses included:
- preference for self-help (36%)
- lack of knowledge of what kind of help to seek or where to get it (34%);
- lack of confidence in mental health treatment (28%),
- stigma or fear of not wanting people to know (22%);
- lack of affordability (17%).
This episode's speaker, Dr. Peter Cornish, is founder of the Stepped Care 2.0 (SC2.0) methodology and current president of Stepped Care Solutions. He has provided mental health system consultation and on-site training to over 250 organizations across North and South America. He is an Honorary Research Professor at Memorial University and Director of Counselling and Psychological Services at the University of California, Berkley. He is also a Principal Investigator for a CIHR “Transitions in Care” research grant aimed at digitizing and evaluating SC2.0 in 3 Canadian provinces.
Links to relevant Resources
Note: During the episode, the term "privileged minority" was intended to mean that many of our practices have been designed through a Eurocentric lens which often overrepresents the views of a White-identified, more privileged segment of society. This segment represents only a minority of the world population.
