The proportion of Europeans with mental health difficulties who have sought help from a psychiatrist within the last 1 year is estimated to be around:
A. ESEMeD revealed the degree of unmet health-care needs in Europe. A significant number of those with depression do not seek treatment. Of those depressed patients who seek help, most receive care from primary-care physicians. Only 21% of those who seek health-care support have seen a psychiatrist in the last 12 months.
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The mean age of onset of panic disorder or agoraphobia is estimated to be around:
A. According to the National Comorbidity Survey Replication, mean age of onset of any panic attack irrespective of diagnosis is around 22 years.
Women outnumber men in prevalence of most anxiety disorders.
Which of the following anxiety disorders is noted more commonly in men than women attending health-care services?
D. As a general rule, all anxiety disorders are more common in women than men. Notable exceptions are OCD and social phobia. OCD is more common in boys than girls, but equally common in adult men and women. Men outnumber women in seeking treatment for social phobia. It is not clear whether men suffer from a more severe form of social phobia or the level of impairment caused by social phobia is more for men than women.
Which of the following types of specific phobia often starts before the age of 10?
A. The estimated lifetime prevalence of blood–injection–injury phobia is around 3.5%. The median age of onset is around 5 to 6 years. Subjects with blood–injection–injury phobia have higher lifetime histories of fainting and seizures. Prevalence was lower in the elderly and higher in females and persons with less education. Patients with this phobia almost never seek psychiatric help, but they have significantly higher than expected lifetime prevalence of other psychiatric conditions, including substance use, depression, anxiety disorders, and OCD.
In an epidemiological survey, mood state and functional impairment are recorded using a purpose-built scale.
Which of the following can increase the reliability of such a questionnaire?
A. Reliability of diagnostic instruments used for interviews in epidemiological surveys will not change by having two independent observers, if the instrument is self-rated by the patients themselves. Similarly, descriptive responses could lower the reliability as they are prone to errors of interpretation. Having a short questionnaire and spending more than usual time on a questionnaire are not useful strategies to improve the reliability. According to psychometric principles, the reliability of an instrument could be increased, to a certain degree, if the number of questions regarding the same theme is increased. This was effectively utilized by the Stirling County Study when revising the instrument used to detect depression between 1950 and 1970.
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