There are many factors that affect why a person might get a mental health problem. The three major factors:

• Biological
• Psychological
• Social

These factors interact.

Biological factors

Biological factors include:

• inherited risk for developing a mental health problem
• use of certain drugs, alcohol or medical treatments can cause mental health problems
• damage to various parts of the brain can increase a person's risk of getting a mental health problem.

Psychological factors

Psychological factors are about the way the person thinks or feels about a situation. This can often be influenced by:

• how a person is brought up and
• the kind of environment that they have experienced when growing up.

Social factors

Certain social factors are also known to influence why a person might develop a mental health problem. These social factors include:

• whether or not a person is unemployed
• whether they have a low income pre-injury.

 

The interaction of factors

It is the interaction of all these factors that is likely to influence whether or not a member of your family might develop a mental health problem.

We know that if you have a brain injury you have a significantly higher risk of getting a mental health problem.

We also know that if you have certain types of mental health problems you have a higher risk for having a brain injury. The types of mental health problems that can predispose you to getting a brain injury include illnesses like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

There are also people who might use drugs or alcohol that cause them to take bigger risks than they normally will. This might increase their risk of having a brain injury.

If you have a mental health problem before your brain injury then that mental health problem may still be an issue after the brain injury. But it might change, it might be harder to manage or some of the symptoms may change.

It is important to work out whether a person has a mental illness after a brain injury because it can affect how that person recovers from the brain injury. Early identification and treatment is important especially because the mental health problems that most people get after a brain injury can be relatively easy to treat.