How common are common mental disorders? Evidence that lifetime prevalence rates are doubled by prospective versus retrospective ascertainment

By Terrie E. Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi, A. Taylor, J. Kokaua, B. Milne, G. Polanczyk, Richie Poulton. Psychological Medicine, 2009

840 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background Most information about the lifetime prevalence of mental disorders comes from retrospective surveys, but how much these surveys have undercounted due to recall failure is unknown. We compared results from a prospective study with those from retrospective studies. Method The representative 1972–1973 Dunedin New Zealand birth cohort (n=1037) was followed to age 32 years with 96% retention, and compared to the national New Zealand Mental Health Survey (NZMHS) and two US National Comorbidity Surveys (NCS and NCS-R). Measures were research diagnoses of anxiety, depression, alcohol dependence and cannabis dependence from ages 18 to 32 years. Results The prevalence of lifetime disorder to age 32 was approximately doubled in prospective as compared to retrospective data for all four disorder types. Moreover, across disorders, prospective measurement yielded a mean past-year-to-lifetime ratio of 38% whereas retrospective measurement yielded higher mean past-year-to-lifetime ratios of 57% (NZMHS, NCS-R) and 65% (NCS). Conclusions Prospective longitudinal studies complement retrospective surveys by providing unique information about lifetime prevalence. The experience of at least one episode of DSM-defined disorder during a lifetime may be far more common in the population than previously thought. Research should ask what this means for etiological theory, construct validity of the DSM approach, public perception of stigma, estimates of the burden of disease and public health policy.

Subfields: Epidemiology, Health, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/89167ef0979d1b292cd444222ea6c104fb4cd8ee

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Citations in the corpus

The epidemiology of depression across cultures (2013, background): “However, long-term longitudinal studies also show that some people with lifetime MDD fail to report their history of depression in cross-section studies (85, 98).”
Prevalence, Persistence, and Sociodemographic Correlates of DSM-IV Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement (2011, neutral): “The second limitation presumably led to underestimation of prevalence, overreporting of persistence, and possible distortion in estimates of correlates, possibly in a differential way across disorders as a function of differences in age at onset and severity.(18) Despite the largely conservative lim”
The p Factor: One General Psychopathology Factor in the Structure of Psychiatric Disorders? (2014, background): “Such a developmental progression would require in the first instance that brief episodes of single disorders are widespread in the population, which is supported by the high lifetime prevalence rates of individuals with disorder accumulated during years of follow-up in longitudinal studies (Copeland”
Prevalence and Correlates of Eating Disorders in Adolescents (2011, background): “In fact, growing evidence from prospective cohort studies suggests that retrospective recall yields underestimates as opposed to overestimates of the true prevalence of psychiatric disorders.(52,53) Therefore, the estimates in this article may be a lower bound of the true prevalence of eating disord”
Childhood maltreatment predicts unfavorable course of illness and treatment outcome in depression: a meta-analysis. (2011, background): “Depression ranks among the most common psychiatric disorders worldwide, with a 12-month prevalence between 10% and 17% and a lifetime prevalence between 17% and 40% (1, 2).”
The global prevalence of common mental disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis 1980-2013. (2014, result): “It could be argued that shorter periods may provide a more valid measure by avoiding possible recall bias with evidence that more conservative estimates of 12-month and lifetime prevalence are produced through cross-sectional as opposed to prospective research designs.(72,73) As with previous resear”
Global variation in the prevalence and incidence of major depressive disorder: a systematic review of the epidemiological literature (2012, background): “Lifetime estimates were excluded, as these are more prone to recall bias (Simon & VonKorff, 1995 ; Kruijshaar et al. 2005; Moffitt et al. 2010 ; Susser & Shrout, 2010).”
Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife (2012, background): “Notably, the prevalence of cannabis dependence is somewhat higher among New Zealanders than Americans (39), but the potency of cannabis obtained from police seizures in New Zealand is similar to that of cannabis in the United States (40, 41).”