Helping Individuals with SMI Manage Respiratory Disease

Course overview

People with serious mental illness (SMI) have a higher prevalence of respiratory diseases than the general population. This contributes to a reduced quality of life and life expectancy rate. The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to this being even more of a problem. In fact, as an example, people with schizophrenia are almost three times more likely to die from COVID-19 than the general population (Nemani et al., 2021). People with SMI may also experience challenges with accessing, engaging in, and following through with treatment for respiratory diseases. This is due to the severity of their mental health symptoms, problems with motivation, social determinants of health, and the fragmented healthcare system in the U.S. The goal of this course is to provide addiction, behavioral health counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals working in the health and human services settings with education about how to support clients with SMI to improve management of their respiratory diseases.