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Mental disorders MENTAL DISORDERS (see also diseases of the central nervous system)

Table of contents :


  • developmental disorders
  • delirium, dementia, and amnestic disorders
  • substance-related disorders
  • psychoses
  • neuroses
  • factitious disorders
  • sleep disorders
  • impulse control disorders
  • adjustement disorders
  • personality disorders

  • Epidemiology : a national survey of US citizens has found that 6% of them have a debilitating mental illness. More startling, almost 50% of those surveyed were found to have had a mental disorder at some point during their lives; > 25% had had 1 in the year before the interview. Treatment is hard to get, and often not sufficient when available. Only about 33% of those in care receive "minimally adequate treatment", such as the appropriate drugs or a few hours of therapy over a period of several monthsref1, ref2, ref3, ref4. The statistics are nearly impossible to compare with previous studies, thanks to constantly changing definitions of mental illness, but in general things don't seem to have changed much over the past decade. > 9,000 US adults, chosen randomly, were visited in their homes as part of the National Comorbidity Survey, which looks at the incidence of multiple mental disorders. An interview then probed to see whether they had mental difficulties as determined by the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The study also classified the severity of disorders, separating them into severe, moderate or mild conditions. The definition of disorders used by the study was quite broad. A few instances of road rage, for example, might qualify as an intermittent explosive disorder. Such a wide net may not be any use in determining who needs medication or treatment, but the survey does provide some useful information. It reveals, for example, that 50% of those with a mental disorder encountered problems before their 14th birthday. This indicates that watching for signs of mental distress in early years could help to avert larger problems in the future. Progress will be made in finding biological markers that can help distinguish children who are simply shy or have a quick temper from those whose difficulties are likely to degenerate into illness, perhaps through an analysis of genes or brain scans. Meanwhile, the first order of business is to improve the quality of treatment. The prevalence of mental disorders did not change during the decade (29.4% between 1990 and 1992 and 30.5% between 2001 and 2003), but the rate of treatment increased. Among patients with a disorder, 20.3% received treatment between 1990 and 1992 and 32.9% received treatment between 2001 and 2003. Overall, 12.2% of the population 18 to 54 years of age received treatment for emotional disorders between 1990 and 1992 and 20.1% between 2001 and 2003. Only about half those who received treatment had disorders that met diagnostic criteria for a mental disorder. Significant increases in the rate of treatment (49.0% between 1990 and 1992 and 49.9% between 2001 and 2003) were limited to the sectors of general medical services (2.59 times as high in 2001 to 2003 as in 1990 to 1992), psychiatry services (2.17 times as high), and other mental health services (1.59 times as high) and were independent of the severity of the disorder and of the sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents. Despite an increase in the rate of treatment, most patients with a mental disorder did not receive treatment. Continued efforts are needed to obtain data on the effectiveness of treatment in order to increase the use of effective treatmentsref.
    Web resources : Do I Need Therapy online test
     

  • psyche : the human faculty for thought, judgment, and emotion; the mental life, including both conscious and unconscious processes; the mind in its totality, as distinguished from the body.
  • situation : the combination of factors with which an individual is confronted. In psychology, the total sum of physical, psychological, and sociocultural factors that act on a person and influence his behavior
  • ego-syntonic : denoting aspects of a person's thoughts, impulses, attitudes, and behavior that are felt to be acceptable and consistent with the rest of their personality.
  • ego-dystonic : denoting aspects of a person's thoughts, impulses, attitudes, and behavior that are felt to be repugnant, distressing, unacceptable, or inconsistent with the rest of their personality.
  • psychiatry : that branch of medicine which deals with the study, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders.
  • psychobiology / biopsychology : a field of study examining the relationship between brain and mind, studying the effect of biological influences, including biochemical, neurological, and pharmacological factors, on psychological functioning or mental processes. Adolf Meyer's school of psychiatric thought, in which the human being is viewed as an integrated unit, incorporating psychological, social, and biological functions, with behavior a function of the total organism.
  • mental disorder : any clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome characterized by the presence of distressing symptoms, impairment of functioning, or significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or loss of freedom. Mental disorders are assumed to be the manifestation of a behavioral, psychological, or biological dysfunction in the individual. The concept does not include deviant behavior, disturbances that are essentially conflicts between the individual and society, or expected and culturally sanctioned responses to particular events
  • disorders usually diagnosed for the first time in infancy, childhood, or adolescence / developmental disorders : a former classification of chronic disorders of mental development with onset in childhood; such disorders are now classified as ...
  • delirium, dementia, amnestic disorders, and other cognitive disorders