Determinants of never-treated status in rural versus urban contexts for individuals with schizophrenia in a population-based study in China.

Background: A goal of China's 2012 National Mental Health Law is to improve access to services and decrease urban versus rural disparities in services. However, pre-reform data is needed for objective evaluation of these reforms' effectiveness. Accordingly, this study compares the pre-reform utilization of medical services for the treatment of schizophrenia in rural and urban communities in China.

Prevalence, correlates, comorbidity, and age of onset of alcohol use disorders in adult males from five provinces in China.

Background: This study integrates data from high-quality mental health surveys in five provinces in China to examine the prevalence, demographic correlates, age of onset, and comorbidity of alcohol use disorder (AUD).

Methods: The five cross-sectional surveys initially screened a representative sample of 74,752 community-living adults (94% response rate) from a sampling population including over 12% of China's adult population. Psychiatrists then administered a detailed diagnostic exam to an enriched sample of 21,015 respondents (95% response rate).

Marriage outcome and relationship with urban versus rural context for individuals with psychosis in a population-based study in China.

Purpose: While social integration among individuals with psychosis differs by social context, this has rarely been investigated across urban vs. rural settings. For individuals with psychosis, marriage may be a key component of social integration.

Malnutrition in early life and adult mental health: evidence from a natural experiment.

As natural experiments, famines provide a unique opportunity to test the health consequences of nutritional deprivation during the critical period of early life. Using data on 4972 Chinese born between 1956 and 1963 who participated in a large mental health epidemiology survey conducted between 2001 and 2005, we investigated the potential impact of exposure to the 1959-1961 Chinese Famine in utero and during the early postnatal life on adult mental illness. The risk of mental illness was assessed with the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and eight other risk factors, and the famine impact on adult mental illness was estimated by difference-in-difference models.

Employment outcome for people with schizophrenia in rural v. urban China: population-based study.

Background: Although outcomes among people with schizophrenia differ by social context, this has rarely been examined across rural v. urban settings. For individuals with schizophrenia, employment is widely recognised as a critical ingredient of social integration.

[A multilevel cross-sectional study of mental disorder in community settings in Zhejiang Province].

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of mental disorder through the 12-item general health questionnaire (GHQ-12) survey and its related factors in community settings in Zhejiang Province.

Methods: A muti-level model was analyzed using data of 14,632 respondents nested in counties (cities), townships (urban districts), villages (urban neighborhoods) from the epidemiological survey of mental illnesses above 15 years old.

Results: The mean score measured by GHQ-12 was (1.

Prevalence, treatment, and associated disability of mental disorders in four provinces in China during 2001-05: an epidemiological survey.

Background: In China and other middle-income countries, neuropsychiatric conditions are the most important cause of ill health in men and women, but efforts to scale up mental health services have been hampered by the absence of high-quality, country-specific data for the prevalence, treatment, and associated disability of different types of mental disorders. We therefore estimated these variables from a series of epidemiological studies that were done in four provinces in China.

Methods: We used multistage stratified random sampling methods to identify 96 urban and 267 rural primary sampling sites in four provinces of China; the sampling frame of 113 million individuals aged 18 years or older included 12% of the adult population in China.

[Levels of common knowledge on common psychiatric disorders and therapeutic means taken in general population: effects of education level and living area].

Objective: To investigate the differences in level of common knowledge toward common psychiatric disorders and means of therapy in general population, resulting from different education levels and living areas.

Methods: All 4,614 persons over 15 years of age recruited from general population in Zhejiang Province via stratified randomly sampling, were classified by education levels as illiteracy, primary school level, high school level, and college level. Each group was thus divided into two categories according to the person's living areas, ie urban and rural area.

[Epidemiological survey of mental illnesses in the people aged 15 and older in Zhejiang Province, China].

Objective: To describe the current prevalence and distribution of all types of mental disorders in Zhejiang Province and use this data to develop a provincial mental health plan.

Methods: Stratified multi-stage cluster randomization was used to identify 14 counties (cities), 70 townships (urban districts), 140 villages (urban neighborhoods) and 15,000 subjects > or = 15 years of age. Psychiatric nurses used an expanded version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) to identify subgroups of subjects at high, moderate and low risk of having a mental disorder, then psychiatrists determined their diagnoses by administering a structured psychiatric examination (SCID) that employs American diagnostic criteria for mental disorders (DSM-IV) to 100% of high-risk, 40% of moderate-risk and 10% of low-risk subjects.