Are mental health conditions being over-diagnosed?

Slowly over recent decades, mental health has gone from something society rarely talked about to something that is increasingly discussed up and down the land. 

The consequence of this is much less stigma for sufferers but consultant psychotherapist Dr Padraic Gibson is concerned the medical profession now has a new problem to contend with - the potential that people are being diagnosed with mental health problems too frequently. 

“There’s been a huge upsurge in celebrities, politicians, people coming out and describing their experiences in almost kind of pathological language at times,” he told Newstalk Breakfast. 

“The language of the diagnostic categories like, ‘I suffer depression or trauma’ or ‘I’m very OCD’. 

“This kind of language has permeated society and I think that has a massive knock on effect across society.” 

A 'Welcome to CAMHS' (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services) sign.

Dr Gibson said his worry is that some unhappy people hear about mental conditions and then conclude they must be suffering from them as well. 

“Even in schools, there’s a lot of health awareness campaigns and while we know health awareness campaigns are great for increasing awareness around mental health issues, they actually have very little effect on psychological outcomes for children or adults,” he said. 

“So, one of the real difficulties is that when you start labelling in this way, it kind of has a self-fulfilling prophecy effect about it. 

“So, if up until you ran the campaign, a child felt they were distressed or upset about something, they now might describe the same experience as depression. 

“We tend to fit our behaviours into a category to help us explain what it is that is happening to us.” 

Variety of potential reasons

A survey by St Patrick’s Mental Health Services in 2022 found that the number of people being treated for mental health problems had risen from 18% of the population in 2018 to 39% in 2022. 

According to Dr Gibson, there could be a number of reasons why the number of people presenting with mental health problems has increased.   

“Is it being over diagnosed? We don’t know that," he said. 

"For example, more people are aware of it, so maybe more people will come forward. 

“There’s better assessment tools than there were before and there’s better places to get assessed. 

“So, there’s a multiple of things that [don't relate to] people deciding to go for more treatment or for doctors to diagnose things more frequently.” 

In Budget 2024, the Government allocated €1.3 billion to mental health services.

Main image: A patient and doctor.