Epidemiology of mental disorders in Qom, 2000

Abstract

Background and Objective: Making a suitable program for giving mental health services to mental patients needs a knowledge about the presenting problems in the society. The objective of this study was to determine the epidemiology of mental disorders in people over 15 years in rural and urban areas of Qom in 2000. Methods: The cases were randomly selected by cluster sampling method among families who were under supervision of Qom health centers in 2000. The questionnaires of symptoms checklist-90-revised on 391 cases were completed by clinical interviewing and diagnosed on the basis of DSM IV criteria. The cut off point for SCL-90-R was scored 64, which showed 87.9% of sensitivity, 90.4% of specificity and 9.1% of overall misclassification rate. Findings: According to the results, 67 cases (17.1%) suffered from different kinds of mental disorders (37 (18.2%) were female and 30 (16%) were male). Prevalence of mood, anxious, adjustment, somatoform and paranoid disorders were 5.8%, 4.9%, 3.3%, 2.8% and 0.3% respectively. The most prevalent symptoms were related to mood, headache and unconfidence towards others and the least symptoms were faint in front of others and tend to break the things. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the prevalence of mental disorders in females were more than males and in urban people was more than rural ones. Also, prevalence of mental disorders in the people aged 25-44 years, singles, people with diploma degree and higher education, unemployed men, housewives and large families were more than others.

Keywords

• epidemiology
• mental disorders
• people over the age of 15
• urban and rural areas
• qom city