Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:48:37.600Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The lifetime prevalence of mental disorders: estimation, uses and limitations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Morton Kramer ,
Michael Von Korff  and
Larry Kessler
Morton Kramer*
Affiliation:
Department of Mental Hygiene, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA
Michael Von Korff
Affiliation:
Department of Mental Hygiene, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA
Larry Kessler
Affiliation:
Department of Mental Hygiene, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Morton Kramer, Department of Mental Hygiene, Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

The age-specific lifetime prevalence rate of a disease is the proportion of persons surviving to a given age who have experienced the disease at any time during their lives. This measure of morbidity has been used to report findings in many of the epidemiological surveys of mental disorders of the last 30 years. This paper presents a life-table method for estimating age-specific lifetime prevalence rates from incidence and mortality data. The method is applied to Monroe County, New York, case register data on the incidence of schizophrenia. Using this method, we estimate that at least 3% of the White population surviving to age 55 have experienced an episode of schizophrenia at some time during their lives. The difficulties of producing valid estimates of lifetime prevalence and the difficulties in interpreting differences reported in such rates make this morbidity measure of secondary importance to incidence and point-prevalence data.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , August 1980 , pp. 429 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Babigian, H. M. (1975). Schizophrenia epidemiology. In Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry Vol. 2 (ed. Freedman, D. X., Kaplan, I. and Sadock, B. J.), pp. 860–866. Williams and Wilkins: Baltimore.Google Scholar
Babigian, H. M. & Odoroff, C. L. (1969). The mortality experience of a population with psychiatric illness. American Journal of Psychiatry 126 (4), 470–480.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Birnbaum, Z. W. (1979). On the Mathematics of Competing Risks. Vital and Health Statistics, Series 2, Data Evaluation and Methods Research, no. 77. DHEW Publ. no. (PHS) 79–1351.Google Scholar
Cooper, J. E., Kendell, R. E. & Gurland, B. J. (1972). Psychiatric Diagnosis in New York and London. Maudsley Monograph no. 20. Oxford University Press: London.Google Scholar
Fischer, J. (1969). Negroes and whites and rates of mental illness: reconsiderations of a myth. Psychiatry 32, 428–446.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gardner, E. A., Miles, H. C., Iker, H. P. & Romano, J. (1963). A cumulative register of psychiatric service in a community. American Journal of Public Health 53, 1269–1277.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldberg, I. D., Levin, M. L., Gerhardt, P. R., Hardy, V. H. & Cashman, R. E. (1956). The probability of developing cancer. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 17, 155–173.Google Scholar
Gruenberg, E. M. (1963). A review of mental health in the metropolis – The Midtown Manhattan Study. Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 16, 77–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gurland, B., Fleiss, J. L., Sharpe, L., Simon, R., Barrett, J. E., Copeland, J., Cooper, J. E. & Kendell, R. E. (1972). The mislabelling of depressed patients in New York State hospitals. In Disorders of Mood, Part I (ed. Zubin, J. and Freyhan, F. A.), pp. 17–28. Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore.Google Scholar
Kramer, M. (1957). A discussion of the concepts of incidence and prevalence as related to epidemiologic studies of mental disorders. American Journal of Public Health 47, 826–840.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
National Center for Health Statistics (1974). Vital Statistics of the United States, 1970, Vol. 2, Section 5. DHEW Publ. no. (HRA) 74–1104, Rockville, Md.Google Scholar
Simon, R. J., Fleiss, J. L. & Gurland, B. J. (1973). Depression and schizophrenia in hospitalized black and white mental patients. Archives of General Psychiatry 28, 509–512.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yolles, S. F. & Kramer, M. (1969). Vital statistics. In The Schizophrenic Syndrome (ed. Bellak, L.), pp. 66–113. Grune and Stratton: New York.Google Scholar