Screening for Serious Mental Illness in the General Population

Abstract

PUBLIC LAW (PL) 102-321, the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration Reorganization Act, established a block grant for states to fund community mental health services for adults with "serious mental illness"(SMI). The law required states to include incidence and prevalence estimates in their annual applications for block grant funds. The law also required the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to develop an operational definition of SMI and to create an estimation method based on this definition for use by the states. The definition of SMI stipulated in PL 102-321 requires the person to have at least one 12-month DSM disorder, other than a substance use disorder, and to have "serious impairment." Subsequently, SAMHSA decided that "serious impairment" should be defined as a Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) score of less than 60.¹