Psychiatric Epidemiology Quotes

Clinical descriptions and Epidemiology l There are two broad types of mood disorders: depressive disorders and bipolar disorders. l Depressive disorders include major depression and persistent depressive disorder, along with the newer diagnoses of premenstrual dysphoric disorder and disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Bipolar disorders include bipolar I disorder, bipolar II disorder, and cyclothymia. l Bipolar I disorder is defined by mania. Bipolar II disorder is defined by hypomania and episodes of depression. Major depressive disorder, bipolar I disorder, and bipolar II disorder are episodic. Recurrence is very common in these disorders. l Persistent depressive disorder and cyclothymia are characterized by low levels of symptoms that last for at least 2 years. l Major depression is one of the most common psychiatric disorders, affecting 16.2 percent of people during their lifetime. Rates of depression are twice as high in women as in men. Bipolar I disorder is much rarer, affecting 1 percent or less of the population.

Retrospective epidemiological studies report that 20% of the general population qualifies for a current psychiatric diagnosis and 50% for a lifetime one.4 Prospective epidemiological studies double these rates and suggest that mental disorder is becoming virtually ubiquitous.5, 6 During the past

In her 1968 book, The Epidemiology of Depression, Charlotte Silverman, who directed epidemiology studies for the NIMH, noted that community surveys in the 1930s and 1940s had found that fewer than one in a thousand adults suffered an episode of clinical depression each year. Furthermore, most who were struck did not need to be hospitalized. In 1955, there were only 7,250 “first admissions” for depression in state and county mental hospitals. The total number of depressed patients in the nation’s mental hospitals that year was around 38,200, a disability rate of one in every 4,345 people.