Although psychiatric facilities no longer treat patients the way movies like The Snake Pit and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest depicted, society’s treatment of people with mental illness is still lacking.

As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I provide care for patients coping with the challenges of mental illness. Symptoms are often painful, life altering, and frightening. Sadly, patients experience additional suffering from the guilt, shame, and social isolation that comes with having a psychiatric disorder. That’s because mental illness continues to carry a stigma that inhibits people from seeking help and limits the amount of services available for those who do seek it.

Had they received the support they needed….

In this month’s Viewpoint in AJN, Juliet Hegdal, a family nurse practitioner, discusses the impact severe mental illness has on patients and their family members. The author shares what it was like being raised by a mother with schizophrenia and the lack of resources available to her and her family. She posits that her mother and society would have been better off had she received the support she needed.

Now many years later, Hegdal’s son, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his mid-20s, is facing a similar lack of services due to the stigma that has not gone away. Hegdal calls on nurses to address this in two ways:

  • First, on an individual level by treating patients with mental illness, in all care settings, with compassion and understanding—just as patients with physical illness or disability are treated.
  • Second, to advocate for systemic changes that will provide patients and their families the support and services they need.

Recently, the stress brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on mental illness and the need for mental health resources. Hopefully this can serve to foster compassion for those who are struggling and help dissolve the remaining stigma so people can get the help they need.

By Christine Moffa, PhD, APRN, PMHNP-BC, AJN senior clinical editor