Helping Clients with SMI Communicate Effectively with Primary Care Providers

People with serious mental illness (SMI) experience higher rates of chronic disease and live 10 to 20 years less than the rest of the population. While part of this can be accounted for by the increased risk of suicide in people with SMI, a significant portion is due to illnesses that are preventable such as cardiovascular, metabolic, and respiratory diseases (de Mooji et al., 2019). These illnesses can be caused by a combination of genetics, psychiatric medication side effects, and potentially modifiable risk factors such as sedentary lifestyle, poor access to healthy food, poor eating habits, obesity, or smoking. Prevention and treatment of these medical conditions are necessary to increase the longevity and quality of life for people with SMI. This typically entails regular medical follow-up, as well as maintaining an ongoing and trusting relationship with medical providers so that they can get their medical and psychiatric needs met. Achieving this can be a challenge for people living with SMI. There are a variety of factors that impact the level of engagement and nature of the relationship a person with SMI has with a medical provider. Some of these factors can turn into barriers to receiving appropriate care. Behavioral health professionals can support clients with SMI around addressing these barriers, which can, in turn, improve the benefit they receive from medical and psychiatric care. The goal of this course is to provide addictions, behavioral health counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals working in health and human services settings with education around barriers that individuals with SMI experience when interacting with their medical providers and strategies to support more effective communication and increased benefit for the client from medical and psychiatric care.