According to the WHO, a mental illness or disorder is characterized by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior. Mental illnesses like depression, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, etc. affect how a person interacts socially, with his family, or at work. The National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates that 1 in 5 US adults experience mental illness every year, while 1 in 20 US adults experience serious mental illness every year.
As we can see, the numbers are not to be underestimated; rates of serious mental illnesses have increased, especially in younger adults. All of this calls for an extensive understanding of what causes mental illness or mental disorders in the United States, whether it is peer pressure, work pressure, social media, or social class; they all need to be studied and understood well in order to reduce this rise in mental health disorders.
One of the things that strongly relates to mental health disorders, is the socioeconomic status of a person and their social class. It's been established that mental illness and its treatment are
deeply retaled to socioeconomic status and social class; in this article we will explore this relationship in depth in regards to certain mental disorders like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and post traumatic stress disorder.
Socioeconomic status and depression
Depression, a mental disorder that inflicts 5% of the world's adult population, is characterized by a loss of pleasure and interest for long periods of time, affecting the quality of your life in all its aspects. Depression can be caused or triggered by many reasons, for example, losing a loved one, the inability to achieve life goals, abuse, and socioeconomic status or social class.
But how does social class relate to depression?
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A study that examined 34000 cases and concluded that socioeconomic status correlates with depression and other mental illnesses, both directly through economic stress and other factors and indirectly through its relationship with the stressful conditions that accompany low income.
Research that studied the effect of socioeconomic and social class on depression in many countries found that in all those countries, higher socioeconomic status worked as a protection against depression.
Hence, we can say that the relationship between depression and social class does exist.
Social class and anxiety
When it comes to anxiety, we find that one of the most common causes is life difficulties or stress. It's not just that people with lower classes experience more stressful conditions, because even people with high or medium classes can experience conditions that are very stressful to them; what really varies is the response to the problematic life experiences.
There is a relationship between social class and the responses to problematic life experiences people go through; compared to middle and upper classes, people of lower classes are more likely to develop distress when exposed to those stressful conditions.
Eating disorders and socioeconomic status
The estimated number of Americans who will suffer from eating disorder (a mental and serious disorder that can be fatal, it's associated with severe disturbance in people's eating behavior) in their lives is about 28.8 Americans.
Eating disorders have a lot of risk factors, including:
Family history.
History of weight bullying.
Dieting and starvation.
Other mental issues.
Strees.
Poor body image and too much focus on weight.
And socioeconomics and social class. Yes, socioeconomic status is a risk factor for eating disorders. Some studies have shown that females who have a lower socioeconomic status have higher rates of disordered eating behavior, like the use of unusual ways for weight loss, such as laxatives, diuretics, pills, and vomiting. This affirms the relationship between socioeconomics and eating disorders, since women who exhibit disordered eating behavior are more likely to develop eating disorders.
Schizophrenia and social class
Schizophrenia is an incurable but controllable mental illness. When it's active, schizophrenia is characterized by:
Delusions.
Hallucinations.
Disorganised speech and thinking.
lack of motivation.
Poor hygiene.
Schizophrenia affects less than 1% of U.S. population.
Schizophrenia is the mental illness that's strongly related to class. Those who are born into the lower class (poverty) have both a higher risk for schizophrenia, and a high risk of developing negative symptoms. According to the Psychology of Social Class by Argyle M., those of the working class are five times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia than the rest of the classes.
A study published by Cambridge University Press found that deficit schizophrenia is elevated among the poor. This study took into account the effect of race as well, and when the social class was held constant, researchers found that race doesn't affect deficit schizophrenia, which means that the findings are purely related to socioeconomic status.
Bipolar disorder and social class
Bipolar disorder is a mental illness characterized by unusual shifts in a person's mood, energy levels, activity levels, and concentration. The mood swings include emotional high (also known as mania) and emotional low ( depression); the symptoms of bipolar disorder differ according to the mood swing. If you are having a mania or hypomania episode, you are likely to experience:
Increased activity.F
Feeling abnormally upbeat.
Euphoria.
Being unusually talkative.
Racing thoughts and risky decisions.
Feeling less need for sleep.
Being distractable.
And if you are having a major depressive episode, the symptoms you might experience are:
Feeling low and depressed.
Lack of interest in things.
Fatigue and loss of energy.
Sleeping too much or not sleeping enough (insomnia).
Weight loss.
Thinking about suicide.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, bipolar disorder affects around 4.4% of U.S. adults.
Is bipolar disorder related to social class?
A study found that bipolar disorder patients had the same level of education but significantly lower social and occupational function than the general population.
Post-traumatic stress disorder and social class
PTSD is a mental health disorder that develops in some people after a painful experience. It causes flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, and uncontrolled thoughts about the event.
As for PTSD and social class, a study was done to investigate this relationship, and the results indicate that neighborhood poverty predicts worse PTSD outcomes in a diverse sample.
From this, we can say that social class clearly affects mental illness and mental disorders one way or another. That's why support on a community level is necessary to improve the outcomes of mental illnesses.
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