Barriers to mental health service use among people with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Robert B Manning, Rebecca Cipollina, Sarah R Lowe and 5 others
PMID 37470994WHAT IT FOUND
Anticipating provider bias was the only disability-specific barrier linked to lower mental health service use among adults with disabilities.
Income and pre-existing conditions also predicted access, but environmental accessibility concerns did not significantly reduce service uptake in this two-wave survey.
Key findings
01Participants who anticipated provider disability bias had significantly lower odds of using mental health services.
02Having an income above the median for adults with disabilities was associated with three times higher odds of using mental health services.
03Perceived environmental barriers to care were not significantly associated with current mental health service use.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study used convenience sampling from disability-focused social media and listservs, which limits generalizability to the broader population of adults with disabilities. The sample was majority White (84.2%), cisgender female (60.1%), and had higher employment rates than national estimates for people with disabilities. Attrition was high; only 44.2% of the initial 441 participants completed the follow-up, and the remaining sample differed significantly from those lost to follow-up (older, more educated, more likely to be White). The study could not analyze patterns by specific disability subgroups due to low counts in some categories, such as speech or language disabilities. The measures for disability-specific barriers were novel adaptations rather than validated multi-item inventories.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that physical or procedural accessibility barriers do not affect mental health service use. The study found no significant association between perceived environmental barriers and service use, but this may reflect the specific sample or measurement limitations rather than a true lack of impact.