Mental health: Region’s mental health-care providers believe employers could do more

About 260,000 adults and children in Colorado every year need treatment for the most severe mental illnesses: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression and serious emotional disturbances.

Some of those could be your coworkers, trying to mask the symptoms to avoid the stigma associated with asking for help, fearing they will lose their jobs.

You may know someone with a mental-health problem and don’t even realize it, because many people dealing with a problem are highly active and productive.

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The downside is that one in four people suffer from some sort of mental disorder and that depression, one of the most prevalent and hardest to detect, is responsible for 400 million lost workdays each year, said Joanna Sinnwell, marketing director for North Range Behavioral Health in Greeley.

Sinnwell and mental health-care providers believe employers could do more to help remove that stigma in the workplace.

“We teach Mental Health First Aid, as do others in Boulder and Larimer counties,” Sinnwell said. The eight-hour class teaches people how to respond to others in a mental-health or substance-use crisis. “We encourage businesses to encourage their employees and supervisors to take the class, as we all spend so much time with our colleagues at work, and we may often be the ones who can help them.”

Mental Health First Aid is a national program with an office in Denver. It teaches the skills to respond to the signs of mental illness and substance use.

According to the World Federation for Mental Health, up to 80 percent of those treated for depression show an improvement in their symptoms, usually within four to six weeks of beginning medication, psychotherapy, support groups or a combination of these approaches, and that nearly 86 percent of employees treated for depression with antidepressants report improved work performance.

The violence factor

When people with a mental-health problem don’t come forward and receive treatment, it could escalate to more serious problems.

What comes to mind is workplace violence, such as Radee Labeeb Prince, who had a history of workplace violence and recently opened fire killing three of his coworkers at a granite company in Maryland.

Discussions become emotional after mass shootings perpetrated by people with a mental-illness history or suspected history, such as Stephen Paddock who opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers Oct. 1 on the Las Vegas strip, leaving 58 people dead and 546 injured, and the Aurora theater shooting in Colorado during summer 2012 when James Holmes killed 12 people and injured 70 others.

But mental health-care providers are quick to point out that most people with mental-health problems are not violent.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services statistics show only 3 percent to 5 percent of violent acts can be attributed to people with a serious mental illness. Its report claims that people with severe mental illnesses are 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population.

Nonetheless, there is more pressure on mental-health providers to alert authorities when a patient expresses violent thoughts.

In Colorado, mental health-care providers are required by law to break confidentiality and report individuals who express that they are a serious threat to themselves, others or target entities. The law was enacted by the Colorado Legislature following the Aurora theater shooting when Holmes confided his thoughts to a psychiatrist prior to acting on those thoughts during the midnight screening of the Dark Knight at a Century 16 theater, but the psychiatrist was reluctant to violate doctor-patient confidentiality.

The law gives providers, including physicians, social workers, psychiatric nurses, psychologists, or other mental-health professionals, or a mental-health hospital, community mental-health center or clinic, institution or their staff, immunity from professional discipline or civil liability.

But it is difficult to assess risk of violence.

According to the Harvard Medical School, clinicians are under pressure to assess their patients for potential to act in a violent way. Although it is possible to make a general assessment of relative risk, it is impossible to predict an individual, specific act of violence, given that such acts tend to occur when the perpetrator is highly emotional, according to a medical school paper on the subject.

During a clinical session, the same person may be guarded, less emotional and even thoughtful, masking any signs of violent intent. And even when the patient explicitly expresses intent to harm someone else, the relative risk for acting on that plan is still significantly influenced by myriad factors such as history of violence, substance abuse, personality disorders, social stress, personal stress, crisis or loss.

But when people have serious mental problems they often don’t come forward on their own.“The extremes don’t seek help,” Sinnwell said.

Funding access to help

Rich Sheehan, a spokesman for Boulder Community Hospital, said the hospital’s foundation is establishing The Mental Health Endowment fund to help with mental-health issues, with the goal of raising $2 million by the end of 2018.

“The breadth of this fund makes it really unusual – i.e. it’s available to people who have finished treatment and are transitioning back to their “regular” life as well as those in active treatment,” Sheehan explained. “Someone in treatment might need assistance to afford medications. Someone in transition might need new clothes to help them get a job. We’ll try to help however we can.” Grants will range from under $100 to thousands of dollars.

Grant Besser, president of the Boulder Community Health Foundation, said mental health needs in the community are growing while public resources are dwindling. Amy Batchelor, a foundation trustee and donor, said the endowment “will play a vital role in improving the overall well-being of our community.”