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Mental Parity_Temp 11/24/09 6:54 PM Page 15 GroupTherapy T How a trend toward mass mental health screenings of patients could do more harm than good. By Matt Isaacs HENRIK SORENSEN/GETTY IMAGES he next time your high schooler goes to the doctor for a sports ph ysical or even a routine exam, there's a good chance she may be automatically screened for mental health problems. A government-appointed panel of experts made headlines in April when they recommended that all teenagers in the United States receive regular screenings for depression, suggesting they become as routine as blood pressure readings, the chair of the task force told a national magazine. The findings, outlined in Pediatrics for the U.S. Preventive Task Force, reopened questions about the risks and efficacy of steering such a massive population to the door of the mental healthcar e system—especially when these programs are often initiated or promoted by the pharmaceutical giants who stand to profit off of the prescription drugs usually prescribed to the newly diagnosed. With OCTOBER 2009 lawmakers at the state and federal levels stepping up legislation mandating evaluations of large segments of the population, mass screenings have become more than a trend. While well-meaning doctors encourage the tests to identify the multitudes suffering unnecessarily from mental illness, critics say the screenings are tilted toward exaggerated rates of "false positives," which lead to more people getting labeled with a mental disorder, and in most cases, going on medication. An incorrect diagnosis can be disastrous for patients, with serious long-term consequences including disqualification from medical insurance and employment, as well as affecting custody and other legal disputes. A prescription regimen presents more serious risks, including damaging physical side effects and even an increase in the probability of suicide among teens. Beyond these concerns, initiatives to screen wide swaths of the population beg the larger question of psychiatry's direction, in which W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G REGISTERED NURSE 15