Mental disorders--who and what might help? Help-seeking and treatment preferences of the lay public.

Background: Research on lay public's attitudes toward the treatment of mental disorders is receiving increasing scientific attention. Most of the surveys on lay public attitudes have used rating approaches. However, in daily life, people are forced to make decisions.

Factors contributing to frequent use of psychiatric inpatient services by schizophrenia patients.

Background: Although present findings about frequent users of psychiatric inpatient services vary from study to study, some potentially important predictors of frequent use were extracted. The purpose of this study was to examine the potentially contributory factors of frequent use of psychiatric inpatient services by schizophrenia patients and to test the influence single factors have in an overall model.

Methods: A total of 307 schizophrenia patients were interviewed five times with intervals of 6 months.

The disregarded caregivers: subjective burden in spouses of schizophrenia patients.

Although the burdens of relatives of schizophrenia patients have been the subject of numerous studies, there are hardly any publications on the living situation of the patients' spouses. The findings of this qualitative interview study of 52 spouses of schizophrenia patients are, therefore, especially noteworthy. Spouses not only face illness-specific burdens but also burdens resulting from their partnership and family roles.

The public's preferences concerning the allocation of financial resources to health care: results from a representative population survey in Germany.

Objective: The aim of the study is to examine to what extent the public is willing to allocate financial resources to the care of people with mental disorders.

Methods: In 2001, a representative survey was conducted among the adult population of Germany (n = 5025). The respondents were asked to select three out of nine conditions for which available resources should on no account be shortened.

[Stigmatization of mentally ill patients by the society].

In our society, people with mental illness are exposed to various forms of discrimination. In principle, individual and structural discrimination plus discrimination due so self-stigmatisation can be distinguished. All three forms of discrimination will be illustrated based on results from our own studies.

Public attitudes to people with depression: have there been any changes over the last decade?

Background: A consistent finding of representative surveys that were conducted in Germany in the early 1990s was that people with depression encountered a substantial amount of stigma and discrimination. The aim of this study was to examine whether public attitudes have improved over the last decade or not.

Methods: In 2001, a representative survey was carried out among the adult population of the "old" Federal Republic of Germany using the same methodology as in a previous survey in 1990.

[Social psychiatry without sociology. Analysis of a scientific journal].

Aim: Psychiatry and Sociology have followed separate avenues in Germany since the mid 1970 s. The aim of this work is to investigate their present relationship by means of an analysis of a scientific journal.

Method: All original works dealing with social psychiatric subjects and appearing in Psychiatrische Praxis in the years 2002 and 2003 were analysed.

Familiarity with mental illness and social distance from people with schizophrenia and major depression: testing a model using data from a representative population survey.

Objectives: The main purpose of this study is to examine whether the relationship between familiarity with mental illness and stigmatizing attitudes about mental illness, which had been observed in a previous study based on a sample of community college students (Psychiatr. Serv. 52 (2001) 953), can be replicated using data from a representative population survey.

[Research on public mental health in the German-speaking area].

Objective: From the point of view of public mental health, research on mental disorders still leads a shadowy existence in the German-speaking countries. The aim of this work is to determine the state of affairs of research in this field based on the publications in scientific journals.

Method: Including the German and international journals listed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for the psychosocial field, a systematic search was done for the year 2003.

["Understanding the mass destruction of nerve cells"].

Objective: One important step towards an early diagnosis and treatment of dementia is the recognition and understanding of disease by the public.

Method: Since laymen's opinion is influenced by mass media, the portrayal of cognitive disorders was analysed using four volumes of a regional newspaper ("Leipziger Volkszeitung", LVZ).

Results: The predominant topics were related to cause and symptoms of dementia.

Coping strategies used by the relatives of people with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a destructive mental illness that alters the lives of both patients and their relatives. Many investigations have described the coping strategies of relatives of patients with schizophrenia, depression and other psychiatric disorders, but there have been no studies reported about coping strategies and OCD.

Aim: The aim of this paper is to report an investigation into experiences of burden in relatives of patients with OCD, and the coping strategies they had developed.

Schizophrenia: problems of separation in families.

Background: In the past, family relationships of people with schizophrenia have mainly been investigated from a clinical viewpoint. The perspective of family development has generally been overlooked in this area of research.

Aim: This paper reports a study exploring problems of development and detachment in families with an adult child with schizophrenia.

[Psychiatric epidemiology in Germany].

Objective: The paper reviews psychiatric epidemiological research in Germany focusing on studies conducted over the last two decades.

Method: Relevant studies were identified using Medline and Psyndex databanks.

Results: Inspired mainly by Anglo-American research, a substantial body of studies demonstrates the constitution of psychiatric epidemiology as a research field in Germany.

Reduced serotonin transporter-availability in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

We investigated the availability of brain serotonin transporters in 10 drug-free patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and age-matched healthy controls in vivo using single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and the radioligand [(123)I]-2beta-carbomethoxy-3beta-(4-idiophenyl)-tropane ([(123)I]beta-CIT). For quantification of regional serotonin transporter a ratio of specific to non-specific [(123)I]beta-CIT-binding was used. The availability of serotonin transporter was calculated using regions of interests (ROI) for thalamus/hypothalamus, midbrain, brainstem (highest density of serotonin transporter) and cerebellum as a reference.

The stigma of mental illness: patients' anticipations and experiences.

Background: There are studies that either deal with the stigmatization patients anticipate or with patients' concrete stigmatization experiences. Up until now, however, research is short of studies that investigate both aspects of subjective stigmatization simultaneously.

Aims: This study aims at investigating to what extent patients with schizophrenia or depression anticipate and experience stigmatization and how this is influenced by the type of mental disorder and the social environment.

[Frequent use of psychiatric inpatient services analysed from three different perspectives].

Objective: Frequent utilization of psychiatric inpatient care was mainly analysed by quantitative methods. The present study combines quantitative with qualitative methods and discusses the results obtained from these different perspectives.

Method: The quantitative analysis is based on data from 184 schizophrenia patients, who were observed over a period of 2(1/2) years.

Experience of stigmatization by relatives of patients with obsessive compulsive disorder.

Patients with mental illness and their relatives experience discrimination and stigmatization in their everyday lives. The stigma of mental illness has been investigated in numerous studies. However, the subjective experiences of patients with OCD and their relatives have not been reported up until now.

Prevalence, severity, and unmet need for treatment of mental disorders in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys.

Context: Little is known about the extent or severity of untreated mental disorders, especially in less-developed countries.

Objective: To estimate prevalence, severity, and treatment of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) mental disorders in 14 countries (6 less developed, 8 developed) in the World Health Organization (WHO) World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Face-to-face household surveys of 60 463 community adults conducted from 2001-2003 in 14 countries in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

[Illness related costs for spouses of patients suffering from a mental illness: results of a study with repeated measurements].

Objective: Aim of this study is the documentation of illness-associated costs for spouses, whose relative is suffering from a mental illness.

Method: Over a period of 12 month, 117 spouses of patients who are suffering from schizophrenia, depression or anxiety disorders repeatedly filled in a standardized questionnaire about illness related expenses and financial losses.

Results: 90 % of the spouses reported direct cash expenditures on behalf of the patients' illness.

The relationship between public causal beliefs and social distance toward mentally ill people.

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the nature of the relationship between public causal beliefs and social distance toward people with mental disorders, particularly schizophrenia and depression.

Method: In total, three representative surveys were carried out in Germany, Russia and Mongolia using personal, fully structured interviews.

Results: Despite the subjects' different cultural backgrounds, their responses show similar trends with regard to attributing depression and schizophrenia to psychosocial causes: 'acute stress' (life event) was most frequently endorsed as the cause for these two disorders.

[The impact of antipsychotic medication on the incidence and the costs of inpatient treatment in people with schizophrenia: results from a prospective observational study].

Subject: Subject of the study is the analysis of the impact of antipsychotic medication on the incidence and the costs of inpatient treatment in patients with schizophrenia.

Methods: In a prospective longitudinal study with 5 points of measurement incidence and the costs of inpatient treatment, the type of antipsychotic medication, as well as the clinical and social characteristics of 307 outpatients with the diagnosis of schizophrenia (ICD 10 F 20.0) were assessed over a period of 2.

[Quality of life instruments and health state preferences to assess effects of medical interventions for mentally and medically ill patients].

Aim: The assessment of quality of life with a single index, which is necessary for cost-utility analyses, causes a loss of information. Therefore the suitability of such indices for mental health and non-mental health conditions was analysed and their ability to detect effects of medical interventions was examined.

Method: Quality of life of 18 schizophrenic patients and 26 patients with diabetes mellitus was rated three times using disease specific instruments (BELP-KF, DMLQ), visual analog scale (VAS), EQ-5D and time trade-off (TTO).

[Opinions on psychiatric diseases of the citizens of Novosibirsk: results of a representative study].

Background: Citizens of Novosibirsk were questioned regarding their ideas about schizophrenia and depressive disorders, with one of the main concerns being a comparison with the ideas and attitudes of the German population.

Method: In 2002, a representative survey (N = 745) was conducted among the adult population of Novosibirsk, using a fully structured interview that has been used in previous surveys in Germany.

Results: Symptoms of schizophrenia were more frequently identified as an indication of mental disorder than were depressive symptoms.