INTRODUCTION Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most common psychiatric disorders worldwide and has been associated with various sociodemographic risk factors, including age, gender and ethnicity. The present study aimed to establish whether gender-specific differences relating to the prevalence and correlates of MDD exist in the Singapore adult resident population. METHODS The Sin...

OBJECTIVES To determine the lifetime prevalence of 18 mental disorders and to establish the pattern that those disorders have with the age of onset in five cities of Peru. MATERIALS AND METHODS As part of the World Mental Health Survey, the study in Peru followed a probabilistic multistage sample of people between 18 and 65 years old in Lima, Chiclayo, Arequipa, Huancayo and Iquitos. The desk...

BACKGROUND In 1994, epidemiological patterns of extra-medical drug use in the United States were estimated from the National Comorbidity Survey. This paper describes such patterns based upon more recent data from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R). METHODS The NCS-R was a nationally representative face-to-face household survey of 9282 English-speaking respondents, aging 18 ye...

BACKGROUND As with most medications, benzodiazepine and similar sedative hypnotics (BDZ/SSH) can produce both beneficial and adverse effects. Pharmacoepidemiological studies have been limited in their capacity to evaluate the relationship between these medications and psychiatric diagnoses in non-clinical populations. The objective of this study was to provide a description of the pattern of us...

BACKGROUND The lifetime prevalence of Social Phobia (SP) in European countries other than Italy has been estimated to range from 3.5% to 16.0%. The aim of this study was to assess the frequency of SP in Sardinia (Italy) in order to verify the evidence of a lower frequency of SP in Italy observed in previous studies (from 1.0% to 3.1%). METHODS A randomised cross sample of 1040 subjects, livin...

BACKGROUND An important reason for the high risk of suicide in the elderly is the determination with which they act out their suicidal thoughts. Early identification of suicidal behaviours in the elderly is therefore important for suicide prevention efforts in this population. METHOD Data are from the Ibadan Study of Ageing (ISA), a household multi-stage probability sample of 2149 Yoruba Nige...

Data are presented on patterns of failure and delay in making initial treatment contact after first onset of a mental disorder in 15 countries in the World Health Organization (WHO)'s World Mental Health (WMH) Surveys. Representative face-to-face household surveys were conducted among 76,012 respondents aged 18 and older in Belgium, Colombia, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexi...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to assess the change in system cost-effectiveness of depression treatment after the introduction of managed care. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING The study population consisted of adults ages 18 to 69 living in low-income areas of Puerto Rico. STUDY DESIGN Using a random probability sample of the population, 2 waves (1992-1993, 1993-1994) of data were co...

OBJECTIVE There is relatively little data on the relationship between lifetime mental disorders and suicidal behaviour in low and middle income countries. This study examines the relationship between lifetime mental disorders, and subsequent suicide ideation, plans, and suicide attempts in South Africa. METHOD A national survey of 4185 South African adults was conducted using the World Health...

BACKGROUND In evidence-based medicine, stratum-specific likelihood ratios (SSLRs) are now being increasingly recognized as a more convenient and generalizable method to interpret diagnostic information than an optimal cut-off and its associated sensitivity and specificity. We previously examined the SSLRs of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) in primary care settings. The present paper aims...