New Delhi: England-based general practitioners say mental health issues are increasingly being over-diagnosed and that society has begun to medicalise everyday stress.
As part of a research, BBC News sent questions to over 5,000 general practitioners in England asking them about their experiences treating patients with mental health concerns. Among the 752 doctors who responded, 442 found over-diagnosis to be a problem. They felt that mental health conditions are slightly, and not significantly, over-diagnosed. “Life being stressful is not an illness,” said one of the GPs.
Another GP said, “As a society, we seem to have forgotten that life can be tough, a broken heart or grief is painful and normal, and we have to learn to cope.”
Some even said that labels such as ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression’ “over-medicalises life and emotional difficulties” and diverts limited resources from those with more severe needs.
A small section of GPs also criticised certain patients for being “dishonest, narcissistic… gaming a system free at the point of use.”
However, other doctors argued the opposite — that under-diagnosis is the real issue. About 81 respondents said mental health problems are not being recognised enough.
People need to be accepted, helped, and encouraged to live life, one GP said, while another felt services are often reluctant to fully assess and diagnose patients.
Earlier this year, UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC that mental health conditions were being over-diagnosed and too many people were being “written off.”
Later, he wrote in The Guardian that his “comments had failed to capture the complexity of this problem”.
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Lack of mental health support
According to a recent study conducted by the National Health Service (NHS) England, one in five adults in England reported having a common mental health condition, such as anxiety or depression. The prevalence is higher among young people, with one in four individuals aged 16-24 suffering from a common mental health condition.
The GPs surveyed by the BBC identified those aged 19-34 years as the group most in need of mental health support. One GP noted that young adults “seem to be less resilient since COVID” and may be more focused on obtaining a diagnosis than developing coping strategies.
A large majority of GPs, 508 out of 752, said that adequate, high-quality mental health support for adults is rarely or never available in their area. Even more, around 640 GPs, expressed worry about securing appropriate care for younger patients.
One GP described the state of mental health services as “a national tragedy.” Another said, “A child literally needs to be holding a knife to be taken seriously and the second that knife is put down, services disengage.”
The doctors were also asked whether they ever prescribe medication because they fear patients won’t get timely access to other support options, such as talking therapies. The most common answer, given by 447 GPs, was that they do this “routinely.”
“I often find myself prescribing antidepressants, knowing they may only offer short-term relief and won’t prevent the problem from returning,” one GP said.
Minesh Patel, Associate Director of Policy and Campaigns at mental health charity Mind, argued there is “no credible evidence” that mental health conditions are being over-diagnosed.
“What we do know,” he added, “is that more people are experiencing mental health problems, with one in five adults now living with a common condition, according to the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey.”
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)