MSE News: 44% with mental health problems have crisis debts

kurgon

RAS wrote: »

Pardon?? I graduated in the subject and it is a very large sample ssize. A small sample is 25, and most national survey use around 3000 as a representative sample. If you studied evidence-based practice, you should know that.

And it is asking people who think they have a mental health problems, not only those who are sufficiently ill to merit referral to a mental health nurses.

The problem may be with an unrepresentative sample because people who regard the subject matter are more likely to complete the questionnaire, but hey ho, a LOT of published surveys have the same problem.



Agreed, which may be why is is a very bad idea to allow creditors to harass and lie to debtors?

And quite often we encounter people here who feel depressed, so do not keep on top of their health, their lives, their bills and then everything spirals out of control when the bailiffs arrive, the bank off-sets their debt and and .. it rapidly goes down the tubes.

They are still not going to meet the criteria for referral to you though.



You will be working with a very carefully defined subset of the population.

In respect to surveys it is a reasonable sample, but the statistics suggest that 1 in 4 have mental health problems then a sample of the represented group of 15 million is only 0,004%, which in any qualitative study is a small sample size.
I agree I only see a small distinct group, but my main issue is that debt can cause mental halth issues and I feel that the article does not represent this, but that mental health is instead a significant contrivutor. I also agree that in some cases this may be the case, but not at the reported 44%.

MSE_Martin

kurgon wrote: »

I think your stats are baised. It is a very small sample size and the term of mental health illness is very subjective. Quite often debts can cause mental health issues and once debt problems are eased, thus the mental health issues are also eased. Working as a mental health nurse, while we do encounter debt issues they are not at this level.

Actually its a very large sample size - most samples used in surveys are usually of 1,000 people and that is deamed statistically relevant. We had 3,000 in each category. However the difference here is as its a poll it doesn't have 'statistical random sample' - ie the poll was not engendered to reflect every element of society

However I do believe it is highly indicative of the situation - the data from all the debt counselling agencies is a huge disproportion of their visitors are from those with mentla health issues.

MSE_Martin

On the point that mental health issues can cause debt - yes absolutely and its something we go through in great detail in the guide which this story was pegged on.

See the Mental Health and Debt guide

sjg1950

Any one with any health issues, which affect either their ability to earn or manage their spending is more likely to have debt problems. If benefit claims were sorted out quickly and with help readily available, people would be under less stress and recover more quickly. I am not advocating huge benefits for those who dont need them, just a change so that it is not so difficult to negotiate and claim the benefits some one is entitled to. I do speak from experiance, having had 2 long term illnesses in the family, one terminal both of which were resulted in depression largely due to debt problems as well as someone with mental health issues, leading to serious debt, again worsening their conditions. Many people find claiming the benefits they are entitled to , too difficult, tiring and draining

hotpot18

Hi, I can't seem to open the mental health & debt guide even though I have adobe. has anyone else had any problems?:beer: