🏠 Living alone
More people live on their own than in the past. Without someone at home to notice that you are struggling or to talk to at the end of the day, problems can build up unseen.
Introduction to Mental Health » Why Mental Health Problems Are Rising
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
AQA spec: 3.2.4.1
- What 'incidence' means and how the incidence of significant mental health problems changes over time
- How the challenges of modern living, such as isolation, can raise the number of problems
- How better recognition and less stigma make recorded rates go up
- How to tell a real rise in problems from a rise in recognition
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Unlock This CourseIs the number of problems really going up?
You may have heard that more young people have mental health problems than in the past. Newspapers, teachers and politicians often say so. But is it true, and if it is, why? In this lesson we look at two main explanations from the specification, and then at how psychologists decide between them.
Key terms:
- Incidence: how often something happens in a group of people over a period of time, for example how many people are diagnosed with a problem in a year.
- Significant mental health problem: a problem that seriously affects a person's thoughts, feelings or behaviour and makes daily life hard.
- Isolation: being cut off from other people, with little contact or support.
- Stigma: a negative and unfair view that society holds about a group of people, which can make them feel ashamed.
- Diagnosis: when a professional, such as a doctor, identifies a problem and names it.
- Recorded rate: the number of cases that are officially written down, which may be different from the true number.
Incidence changes over time
The specification asks how the incidence of significant mental health problems changes over time. The general picture from health services in many countries is that the recorded number of people with mental health problems has risen in recent decades. We do not need exact figures for the exam. What matters is that you can explain the reasons.
There are two main explanations. The first says there really are more problems. The second says there are not necessarily more problems, but more of them are being noticed and written down.
Explanation 1: the challenges of modern living
Life today is different from life a few generations ago. Some of these changes may put extra pressure on mental health. The specification gives isolation as its example, and there are several ways in which modern life can make people more isolated or stressed.
🚜 Moving away from family
Many people move to another town or country for study or work. They leave behind relatives and old friends who would once have given support, so they may feel alone.
⏰ Long working hours
Long hours and tiredness leave less time for family, friends and rest. People can feel stressed and cut off from the people who help them cope.
📱 Social media and comparison
Social media lets us chat to others, but we also see the best parts of other people's lives. Comparing ourselves with these images can leave us feeling that we are not good enough. Time online can also replace face-to-face contact.
💰 Financial pressure
Worries about paying for housing, bills or debts can cause constant stress. Money worries are hard to switch off and can affect sleep, mood and relationships.
🔗 The link to coping
These pressures make coping harder, as you saw in the last lesson, so more people may end up struggling.
If this explanation is right, then the rise in problems is real: more people are actually becoming unwell.
Explanation 2: better recognition and less stigma
The second explanation is very different. In the past, many people hid their mental health problems, and the idea of seeing a doctor about your feelings was unusual. Two changes have taken place.
- Increased recognition of the nature of mental health problems. Doctors, teachers, parents and the public now understand much more about what mental health problems are. Problems that were once ignored, or called 'weakness' or 'attention seeking', are now spotted and taken seriously.
- Lessening of social stigma. People talk more openly about mental health, in schools, on television and online. Because there is less shame, more people feel able to ask for help.
When more people seek help, more are diagnosed. When more are diagnosed, the recorded rate goes up. The rise in the numbers could therefore be partly a rise in recognition, not only a rise in the problems themselves. A good way to picture it is a torch shone into a dark room. Switching it on does not put more objects in the room. It just lets us see what was always there.
Real rise or rise in recognition?
This is the key skill for the exam. A higher number in the records can have two possible causes, and you should be able to say which one an example fits.
How to tell them apart
- A real rise is linked to something that has changed in people's lives, such as more people living alone, more money worries or more time comparing themselves online.
- A rise in recognition is linked to something that has changed in how problems are noticed, talked about or recorded, such as less shame, better awareness or more people visiting a doctor.
For example, if a school says that more students now talk to a counsellor about anxiety, this might be because there is more anxiety. It might also be because students now feel it is fine to ask. On its own, the number cannot tell us which. Both explanations can be true at the same time, and the records alone cannot show how much each one adds.
It is also fair to say that the two explanations can work together. Better recognition helps people to get support, while the pressures of modern life may mean more people need it.
Common mistakes
- Saying that the rise is only because of social media. Modern living has many challenges, not just social media, and recognition is a second main explanation.
- Writing 'isolation' with no detail. Explain how it happens, such as living alone or moving away from family, and why it harms mental health.
- Forgetting that a higher recorded rate does not always mean more people are unwell. It can mean more people are being recognised.
- Mixing up stigma and recognition. Stigma is the shame that stops people seeking help. Recognition is spotting and understanding the problem.
- Quoting exact statistics from memory. Keep to general points, which are safer and are what the exam asks for.
Exam-style question
(a) Describe one reason why the recorded incidence of mental health problems has increased over time. [2 marks]
(b) Explain how a lessening of social stigma could lead to a rise in the recorded number of mental health problems, even if the real number has not changed. [3 marks]
Model answer
(a) One reason is the challenges of modern living, such as isolation (1). For example, many people now move away from their family or live alone, so they have less support and problems can build up (1).
(b) When there is less stigma, people feel less ashamed of having a mental health problem (1). So more people feel able to visit a doctor and ask for help (1). More of them are then diagnosed and recorded, so the recorded number goes up even though there may not be more people who are actually unwell (1).
Exam tip
In part (b) the question says 'even if the real number has not changed'. Make that point clearly in your last sentence: the number recorded has risen because more cases are noticed, not because more people have become ill.