Community Health-Psych

Community Health-Psych

Community health teams aim at treating individuals who have mental illness in what can be described as a domiciliary facility or setting other than asylum. Community health services aim at providing more than just outpatient treatment to the individual. The concept of mental health services can, therefore, be described as one in which the community of the patient and not a particular facility provides care for the individual suffering from mental illness. Examples of community mental health services include halfway houses, psychiatric wards, clubhouses, and self-help groups for people suffering from mental health. The main advantage of community mental health service is that they reduce social alienation and forms of stigma or violations that may be characterized in asylums (Reisner et al., 2015).

The factors associated with mental health can be characterized by biological factors, social factors, and political factors. One of the biological factors associated with mental illness is genetics. Research findings have confirmed that several conditions, such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s, are polygenic: multiple defective genes cause them. The second biological factors associated with mental disorders is prenatal damage (Brooks et al., 2015). Prenatal damage is a collective word for any form of damage that a fetus may experience while still in the mother’s womb. Prenatal damage may be caused by activities such as indulgence in drugs such as alcohol by the pregnant mother. Incidents of stress and trauma experienced by the pregnant mother also expose the fetus to the risk of mental illness.

The third biological factor associated with mental illness is infections, disease, and toxins. Forms of mental illness such as dementia and OCD have been linked to the exposure to streptococcus and infections such as HIV. Research findings have also shown that toxins and infections stimulate a change in the chemistry of the brain and thus causing mental disorders. The third biological factor associated with mental illness is brain defects and injury. Any form of injury on the brain can adversely affect its functioning leading to mental illness (Brooks et al., 2016). Lastly, substance abuse is also characterized under biological factors that can cause mental illness.

One of the social factors associated with a mental disorder is life experiences and stress. Mental disorder has been linked to life experiences such as physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Mood and anxiety disorders have been linked to stressful life events. I the victim is not given support by the people around them; they are likely to developmental disorders. Extreme life experiences such as wars also expose the individual to the risk of PTSD, which is a serious mental disorder.

Poverty is also another significant factor linked to mental illness. People of low socioeconomic status are at a high risk of developing mental illness. According to theorists, constant poverty often leads to increased levels of psychopathology and low self-concepts. Social relationships can also adversely affect the mental status of an individual (Ellis, Every-Palmer, & Einstein, 2017). Incidents of divorce, for example, and relationship breakdowns between people may adversely affect their thought patterns leading to emotional distress and, eventually, mental illness.  Political factors such as high taxation, lack of opportunities, and poor development in a country may adversely affect the citizens of the country.

There are various evidence-based practice strategies that have proven useful in the treatment of various mental disorders. Addiction and other mental disorders, for example, are best controlled with cognitive behavioral therapy. The best evidence-based practice for post-traumatic stress disorder is exposure therapy. Other forms of therapy, such as functional family and motivational therapy, are evidence-based practices for drug and substance abuse. Dialectal Behavior therapy and assertive community intervention are evidence-based practices for mental illness.

Nurses in the community serve as the custodians of both physical and mental health. The fundamental role of nurses in the community, thus, is to provide medical care to the patients. Other than the provision of healthcare, nurses also serve a sensitization role (Smolowitz et al., 2015). They are supposed to develop programs through which they can educate the public about the risk factors characterized in the population and how they can be mitigated. Thirdly, nurses as custodians of health in the community should serve the role of promoting a healthy lifestyle in the community, for example, by overseeing the distribution of pregnancy tests and condoms in the community.

Nurses have direct interaction with patients and the various forms of illnesses. It is, therefore, the nurse’s role to maintain track of the health status of the community and alert the health care systems in the event of a disaster or a health concern before they turn out into an epidemic (Smolowitz et al., 2015). As health caregivers, nurses are in a position where they can evaluate the efficiency of various intervention programs and evidence-based practice. It is their role in the community, therefore, to design the best healthcare methods in the community and make recommendations to the health care systems that will serve to improve the overall health of the community.