Disparities and Inequalities in Cancer Care and Outcomes in Patients with Severe Mental Illness: Call to Action - Grassi 2021
People with severe mental illness (SMI) are at a very high risk of being stigmatized and getting bad care for their physical health. It has been shown that they are more likely to get sick and have a worse prognosis for a number of medical conditions than the general population. This lowers their life expectancy by at least 10–20 years. The Editorial Board of the journal Psycho-Oncology called for a special issue on cancer care for people with SMI. This issue would focus on cancer health disparities and inequalities among people with SMI, cancer mortality, communication problems between multidisciplinary oncology and psychiatric teams, and the need for more structured intervention (i.e., screening, prevention, treatment). There were authors from eight different countries. The problem of stigma and the things that make it hard for people with SMI to get cancer care, like how complicated SMI is and how doctors don't understand it, were looked at. Problems with patients, clinicians, and institutions, like the fact that care was spread out in different places, were some of the biggest roadblocks. Patients with SMI had a higher risk of dying from cancer and didn't know much about what causes cancer. There were also ideas for how to help. The authors came to a number of conclusions, such as the need for specific guidelines and clinical procedures for cancer care in mental health settings, large-scale studies to look into the differences in care for people with SMI, and a bigger picture of psychosocial oncology as the bridge between oncology and psychiatry. Bipolar disorders, cancer, inequalities, mental health, death, care, screening, psycho-oncology, schizophrenia, and severe mental illness are some of the words that come to mind.
Grassi L, Riba MB. Disparities and inequalities in cancer care and outcomes in patients with severe mental illness: Call to action. Psychooncology. 2021 Dec;30(12):1997-2001. doi: 10.1002/pon.5853. PMID: 34874094.
