Childhood determinants of adult psychiatric disorder.

The aim of this project was to assess the current evidence from longitudinal studies for childhood determinants of adult mental illness. Because of the variable and often prolonged period between factors in childhood and the identification of mental illness in adults, prospective studies, particularly birth cohorts, offer the best chance of demonstrating associations in individuals. A review was undertaken in 2006 of the published literature from longitudinal studies, together with some large-scale retrospective studies and relevant reviews which provided supplementary evidence.

Are structured interviews truly able to detect and diagnose Bipolar II disorders in epidemiological studies? The king is still nude!

Introduction: A research commentary published in 2005 pointed out that the apparently low prevalence of Bipolar Disorder diagnosis as reported by epidemiological studies may be related to the under-estimate of bipolar disorder cases generally yielded by methodological instruments that are applied in such investigations.

New Data Apparently Challenge This Notion: More recent publications have presented new results that apparently contradict the issues raised by the commentary, stating that the CIDI interview, which is used in the most important epidemiological studies is not only valid but highly reliable in identifying bipolar disorders.

Commentary: This paper analyzes the new data and concludes that they do not give a clear indication as to how reliably the CIDI can recognize undiagnosed bipolar disorder cases.

The distribution of the common mental disorders: social inequalities in Europe.

Background: The social class distribution of the common mental disorders (mostly anxiety and/or depression) has been in doubt until recently. This paper reviews the evidence of associations between the prevalence of the common mental disorders in adults of working age and markers of socio-economic disadvantage.

Methods: Work is reviewed which brings together major population surveys from the last 25 years, together with work trawling for all European population studies.

Size and burden of depressive disorders in Europe.

We review epidemiological studies of depression in Europe. Community surveys are essential. Methodological differences in survey methods, instruments, nuances in language and translation limit comparability, but consistent findings are emerging.

Psychosis in the community and in prisons: a report from the British National Survey of psychiatric morbidity.

Objective: Reports of increased rates of psychosis in prisons could be due to sampling and ascertainment differences. The authors compared two samples of subjects 16-64 years of age: those from the general population of residents in Great Britain and prisoners in England and Wales.

Method: A random sample of remanded and sentenced male and female prisoners (N=3,142) and a two-phase, cross-sectional random sample of household residents (N=10,108) were assessed with structured questionnaires and the semistructured Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry.

Prevalence of psychiatric disorder in Europe: the potential and reality of meta-analysis.

Background: Within the European Mental Health Status Project, over 200 psychiatric surveys concerning members of the European Union (plus Norway) were examined for their potential for meta-analysis with regard to prevalence of psychiatric disorders and basic demographic and social variables. The diversity of samples, methods, analysis and presentation was such that only data derived from GHQ-12 and CIDI studies could be used, and those relating to sex differentials only.

Methods: The statistical program "Stata" was used to compute odds ratios (with confidence intervals) for individual studies, and to produce fixed and random effects estimates of the pooled odds ratio for all studies together, and a measure of heterogeneity.

Psychosocial wellbeing and psychiatric care in the European Communities: analysis of macro indicators.

Background: This paper reports the findings of an analytical comparison of several macro indicators collected routinely from institutional sources in Europe.

Methods: We carried out a review of macro indicators capable of providing a synthetic description of mental health status and the availability of psychiatric care in European countries. These were collected routinely from sources such as WHO, OECD, EUROSTAT, and IMS.

Social position and the common mental disorders with disability: estimates from the National Psychiatric Survey of Great Britain.

Background: Published studies linking the common mental disorders with social disadvantage lack basic comparability. This project aimed to estimate effect sizes and independence of social position markers as risk factors for common mental disorders. Disorders with disability were examined to identify groups with high clinical and policy priority.

Social inequalities and the common mental disorders: a systematic review of the evidence.

Background: Of two large-scale government-commissioned studies of common mental disorders in the UK, one found occupational social class to be the strongest marker of risk while the other showed no clear relationship. This study reviews the published evidence on the links between conventional markers of social position and the common mental disorders in developed countries.

Methods: Inclusion criteria covered general population based studies with broad social class variation; samples of 3,000 or more adults of working age; identification of mental illness by validated instruments; social position identified by explicit standard markers; fieldwork undertaken since 1980; published output on key areas of interest.