Research Highlights

• Subject Category:
  • Clinical medicine

Published online: 1 July 2009 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2009.135

Psychiatry: Mental disorders in China

Felix Cheung

Introduction

© (2009) istockphoto.com/Jean Schweitzer

In China and other middle-income countries, mental disorders are the leading cause of ill health. Governments around the world are updating their social and health services to address this problem, but first it is necessary to understand the situation of the problem. Michael Phillips at Beijing Hui Long Guan Hospital and co-workers¹ have now conducted a comprehensive analysis on the prevalence, treatment and associated disability of mental disorders in China.

The researchers picked 363 primary sampling sites (96 urban and 267 rural) at random in four provinces (Shandong, Zhejiang, Qinghai and Gansu) of China for their study. They screened 63,004 adults for mental disorders and found the prevalence to be 17.5%. The prevalences of mood (for example, depression), anxiety, substance abuse (for example, alcohol) and psychotic (for example, schizophrenia) disorders were around 6.1%, 5.6%, 5.9% and 1.0%, respectively.

Mood and anxiety disorders were more prevalent in women than in men, and also in adults 40 years or older. Disorders related to alcohol use were 48 times more prevalent in men, and rural people were more likely to have depressive disorders and to abuse alcohol compared to their urban counterparts. Among those diagnosed with mental illness, 24% were moderately or severely disabled by their illness, but only 8% had sought professional help, and only 5% had seen a mental health professional.

The researchers compared their data with those collected by the World Health Organization² and found there were substantial differences in prevalence, disability and treatment rate between the two sets of data. Based on this finding, the researchers urge governments of low- and middle-income countries to review their situations before scaling up mental health services.

The authors of this work are from:
WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention, Beijing Hui Long Guan Hospital, Beijing, China; Departments of Psychiatry and Epidemiology, Columbia University, New York City, New York, USA; Shandong Provincial Mental Health Center, Jinan, China; Tongde Hospital of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, China; Third People's Hospital, Xining, China; Tianshui Mental Hospital, Tianshui, China; and Qingdao Mental Health Center, Qingdao, China.

References

1. Phillips, M. R. et al. Prevalence, treatment, and associated disability of mental disorders in four provinces in China during 2001–05: an epidemiological survey. Lancet 373, 2041–2053 (2009).
    | Article | PubMed |
2. http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/2004_report_update/en/index.html