Healthcare is Holistic

 


Picture this – You’re sitting in the doctor’s office for a follow up appointment. Lately, you’ve been working on your health because recent results came back showing it’s time to focus more on your health. So, that’s what you’re doing. And while you’re sitting in the office, you are given a short questionnaire asking how often you felt a particular way, or if it’s hard to relax, or if your sleep or appetite has been off lately. What do these have to do with the test results?

Picturing this scenario may be easier for some than others, because this may have recently been your experience. Some of you may have answered questions about anxiety, while others were asked about depression. Some even may have been asked about both. These moments in the doctor’s office show how your medical provider is concerned about your holistic health, and in these moments your provider is performing a mental health screener to confirm if there is not additional consideration needed to support your overall health and wellbeing. Doctors are frequently recognized as being “on the front line” in healthcare. Mental health screeners are another way medical providers show up for their patients by using a first-line defense approach in identifying potential mental health needs and making appropriate recommendations for support. These screeners save lives.

The World Health Organization (WHO) tracks many aspects relating to health globally, and they have observed that physical health and mental health are strongly related to each other. They see this especially in how physical health experiences can introduce risk factors that negatively impact people who live with serious mental disorders (SMD) around the world. In fact, WHO has shared that “the majority of deaths amongst people with SMD are attributable to physical health conditions” over the amount of mortality caused by unnatural death. A recent study also found that regardless of gender, age, or education levels, the two-way impact (positive or negative) between mental health and physical health affects everyone (Hanna et al). In this study, they saw that multiple mental health disorders were strongly connected to

  • infections,
  • pain,
  • headaches,
  • gastro-intestinal conditions,
  • pulmonary conditions, and
  • neurological conditions.

Another recent study (Al-Ozairi et al.) found that “patients with chronic physical diseases were 1.8 times more likely to have a chronic mental health disorder compared to those without chronic diseases.” They also saw strong negative connections between mental health and chronic physical diseases such as

  • cancer,
  • diabetes,
  • renal disease,
  • hypertension,
  • neurological disease,
  • cardiovascular disease, and
  • respiratory disease.

A third project (Wienand et al.) reviewed 41 studies including over 18 million people to identify common patterns that developed between chronic physical health and mental health conditions. A significant discovery in the project emphasizes that distress/stress is linked to immune-mediated inflammation as well as tobacco consumption and low levels of physical activity also created physical health problems for folks with chronic mental health conditions.

So, what’s my point?

You at your best. Your medical providers at FPA and I want to help you experience yourself at your best.

Physical health and mental health naturally go hand-in-hand. Your medical provider may refer you to work with me, and I may refer you to your medical provider, or a medication provider, or another health specialist to support your physical and psychiatric needs along with your mental health.

Effective healthcare is holistic, and while this current post is focusing only on the physical and mental aspects of health, there are also social, spiritual, economic, environmental, intellectual, and sexual. While often therapy begins with a focus on mental health, therapy considers all the factors which influence positive or negative mental health conditions.

At Family Practice Associates, you have your medical providers on your support team, and you also have access to a therapist and a psychiatric medication provider. Some patients are also eligible for case manager support to assist in resource networking to improve overall wellbeing. Ask your provider at your next visit. Each provider you meet with has your best interest in mind. If we are not already recommending any additional support for your health or wellbeing, feel welcome to share any concerns you have about something that could be negatively affecting your physical or mental health and appropriate recommendations can be provided.

- Michael Bennet, LPCC 


References:

Al-Ozairi, A., Irshad, M., Alsarraf, F., Raina, S., Alsaraf, H., & Ozairi, E. A. (2025). Prevalence of mental health disorders and their association with chronic physical diseases in Kuwait. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 16, 1658457. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1658457

 

Daré, L. O., Bruand, P., Gérard, D., Marin, B., Lameyre, V., Boumédiène, F., & Preux, P. (2019). Co-morbidities of mental disorders and chronic physical diseases in developing and emerging countries: a meta-analysis. BMC Public Health, 19(1), 304. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6623-6

 

Hanna, M. R., Caspi, A., Houts, R. M., Moffitt, T. E., & Torvik, F. A. (2024). Co-occurrence between mental disorders and physical diseases: a study of nationwide primary-care medical records. Psychological Medicine, 54(15), 4274–4286. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0033291724002575

 

Wienand, D., Wijnen, L. I., Heilig, D., Wippel, C., Arango, C., Knudsen, G. M., Goodwin, G. M., & Simon, J. (2024). Comorbid physical health burden of serious mental health disorders in 32 European countries. BMJ Mental Health, 27(1), e301021. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjment-2024-301021

 

World Health Organization. (2018). Management of Physical Health Conditions in Adults with Severe Mental Disorders: WHO Guidelines. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/978-92-4-155038-3

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