Mental disease, prevalence

Seedat, S., Stein, M. B., Forde, D. R. (2003). Prevalence of dissociative experiences in a community sample Relationship to gender, ethnicity, and substance use. Journal of Nervous Mental Disease, 191, 115-120. 

The most prevalent past-year mental disease classes arc anxiety disorders (18%), mood disorders (10%), impulse-control disorders (9%), and substance abuse (15%). 

Psychiatric treatment of new illnesses has accelerated since the 1980s. Whereas psychiatry traditionally had been dominated by a psychodynamic perspective on illness, the field has turned its back on that tradition in favor of predominantly biological definitions of mental illness. Critics of this shift focus their attention on the social factors that have led psychiatrists to the prescription pad. One can only express wonderment at the discovery of so many new brain diseases since 1980. The bible of psychiatric diagnoses, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, has now been revised three times since 1953, most recently in 1994. The first two editions classified illnesses in accordance with the psychodynamic model prevalent at the time. Conditions warranting psychiatric treatment were understood as disorders of the mind. Then, in the 1980s, the language of psychotherapeutic disorder abruptly disappeared and was replaced by... 

Globally, five disease groups account for 70 per cent of the total burden of disease. Infectious diseases come first, representing 31.01 per cent of the burden, followed by mental conditions, injuries, cardiovascular disease, and obstetric conditions (12.85 per cent, 12.24 per cent, 9.25 per cent, and 8.64 per cent, respectively) (Kaplan 2004). These conditions afflict both the developed and developing world. There is, therefore, a commonality of interest for some diseases, including HIV/AIDS and TB, which are increasingly prevalent in the developed world. 

In humans, obesity is a complex disease because of the redundancy of systems that regulate energy storage. There are inherited disorders of hyperphagia leading to obesity with associated clinical features such as hypogonadism and mental retardation. One hereditary disorder is Prader-Willi syndrome (Chapter 26), which is the most prevalent form of dysmorphic genetic obesity (1 in 10,000-20,000... 

Another common childhood disease affecting mental function is autism, originally called Kanner s syndrome, named after a Johns Hopkins pediatrician who defined the disease. The diagnosis is based on examination of the child s behavior and neurological examination. Recent reviews estimate a prevalence of 1-2 per 1,000 births for autism and close to 6 per 1,000 for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). 

In contrast, in other subjects, the simulated disease is due to psychiatric problems such as psychoses, mental retardation and personality disorders. In these cases, the intrinsic reason for the lesions is different, as the subject generally hopes to attract the attention of the people he is surrounded by and of the doctor, or else he is reacting to difficult or unfavourable environmental conditions with involuntary somatisation at the skin level. These unconscious simulators are prevalently female. 

The disease is characterized by a decreased mental acuity. There is increased forgetfulness, failing judgment, a decreased capacity to do simple calculations, and sometimes a disorientation in time and place. The ailment is more prevalent in middle-aged women than in men, but may occur occasionally at an earlier age. In many cases it does not appear until the individual reaches the 70s. 

Many occupational diseases are associated with specific occupations, e.g. silicosis with the pottery industry, byssinosis with the cotton industry. Whilst improvements in working conditions have greatly reduced the incidence of such diseases, routine monitoring of workers not exposed to these conditions is an important feature of occupational health practice. Here the principal objective is that of controlling diseases and conditions prevalent in industrial populations with a view to their eventual eradication. This form of monitoring also makes a great contribution to the control of stress-related diseases and conditions, such as mental illness and heart disease. 

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