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A community study of minor psychiatric morbidity in Taiwan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Tai Ann Cheng
Tai Ann Cheng*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC
*
1 Address for correspondence: Dr Tai Ann Cheng, Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital, No. 1. Chang-Te Street, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
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Synopsis

A community study of minor psychiatric morbidity (MPM) was carried out on three population samples aged 15 and above randomly selected from rural (Yenpu), suburban (Chishan), and urban (Kaohsiung) communities (N = 350 for each) in Taiwan. A two-stage case finding strategy was applied with a newly developed and validated screening questionnaire (CHQ), and a modified Chinese version of the Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS-CV). The total response rate was 99·4% and there was no time lag between the CHQ screening and the second stage clinical interview conducted by a psychiatrist. The weighted validity of the CHQ was found to be acceptable (sensitivity 69·6%, specificity 94·8%, misclassification rate 11·4%). The overall weighted prevalence rate was 18·0% for men and 33·3% for women. Both the CIS and the CHQ data are used as the morbidity indices to investigate the sociodemographic risk factors of MPM. A higher risk of MPM, which occupied 92% of the total morbidity, was found to be associated with women aged 35 and above, the unemployed men, and the lower socioeconomic status after linear modelling.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , November 1988 , pp. 953 - 968
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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