People with a physical disability or physical health problem are more likely to experience a mental health problem. In contrast, people with mental health problems are more likely to experience physical health problems.
- More than 15 million people - 30% of the UK population - live with one or more long-term conditions, and more than 4 million of these people will also have mental health problems.1
- People with long-term physical conditions are likelier to have lower well-being scores than those without.2
- People with cancer, diabetes, asthma and high blood pressure are at greater risk of a range of mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and PTSD.3,4
- Of people with severe symptoms of mental health problems, 37.6% also have long-term physical conditions. This compares with 25.3% of people with no or few symptoms of a mental health problem.5
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References
- Naylor, C., Parsonage, M., McDaid, D., Knapp, M., Fossy, M., & Galea, A. (2012). Long-term conditions and mental health – The cost of co-morbidities. London: The King’s Fund, & Centre for Mental Health.
- Raj, D., Stansfeld, S., Weich, S., Stewart, R., McBride, O., Brugha, T., … & Papp, M. (2016). Chapter 13: Comorbidity in mental and physical illness. In S. McManus, P. Bebbington, R. Jenkins, & T. Brugha (Eds.), Mental health and wellbeing in England: Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2014. Leeds: NHS Digital.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.