More People Admit Mental Health Fears

WASHINGTON — About a third of Americans say they once felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown or had a mental health problem, according to a study released Sunday that examines perceptions of psychological health over four decades.

“There’s been a real change in both Americans’ attitudes toward acknowledging mental health problems and in their willingness to talk to people about it,” said Ralph Swindle Jr., lead author of the study, which appears in the July issue of American Psychologist.

In 1996, more than 26% of adults surveyed said they had felt an impending nervous breakdown, up from 19% in 1957, Swindle said.

An additional 7% said they had experienced a mental health problem, a question not asked in the earlier survey. Most of those questioned related mental illness to more serious psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia.

The increase between the surveys could be caused by a combination of more people experiencing psychological problems and a lessening of the stigma associated with admitting to a nervous breakdown, said Swindle of Indiana University.

Those most likely to say they had anticipated a nervous breakdown were young, white single mothers with low incomes and no involvement with organized religion, researchers said.

In the 1957 survey, most people said health problems had caused them to feel close to a breakdown. But in 1996, the most frequently cited causes were relationship problems, including divorce, separation and other marital strains.

The nervous breakdown survey questioned 1,444 American adults from March to May 1996 and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.