Published Tuesday, January 22, 2013 by Jim Cromwell.
I was asked again about the incidence and prevalence of mental health problems in deaf people. I've never seen a good answer, so this is mine:
I've seen data that says the incidence (number of new
cases per year) and prevalence (number of cases) of mental health problems are
the same for deaf and hearing people, and I've seen data saying deaf people
suffer from twice as many.
However, you need to define both "deaf" and
"mental health problem" before you present such statistics and nobody
ever convincingly has, that I know of.
- Slightly deafened in old age
- Prelingually profoundly deaf
- BSL user
- Unilaterally deaf
- Fidelity problems
- ... etc
"Mental Health Problems" means:
- Paranoid schizophrenia
- Alcoholic
- Aspergers Syndrome
- Arachnophobia
- Depression for apparently no reason
- Depression for a very good reason
- ... etc
It is probable that there is a higher incidence because
various mental health problems can be caused and/or maintained by THE CAUSE OF
DEAFNESS. So you might be deaf from meningitis or a head injury and those things
can give rise to all sorts of 'mental' difficulties. Equally the EFFECTS of
deafness can cause or exacerbate - such as unemployment, identity problems, exploitation
etc. The prevalence may well be higher because deaf people do not tend to seek
help, because of lack of education about problems and services, and because of
lack of faith in the services that exist (like being able to understand the GP,
who may not book an interpreter, and whose receptionist may well just call your
name at the appointment time.) Also because psychological therapy is
essentially based upon communication ("talking therapies"), there is
the whole issue of BSL-English, interpreters, triadic therapy, etc...
So it depends what you mean by the question.