title: Long-term outcome of psychiatric disorders in the community: a 13-year follow-up study in a nonclinical population.
abstract: In 1980, a two-stage cross-sectional study on the prevalence of mental disorders was performed on a probability sample of 1,574 adult residents of two boroughs in Greater Athens served by a Community Mental Health Center (CMHC). After completion of the interviews, a "case" identification procedure was applied through the use of clinical criteria allocating each respondent to one of five categories ranging from "well" to definite "cases" (stage A). In stage B time 1 (1980 to 1981), two psychiatrists interviewed a sample of 360 respondents consisting of all the probable and definite cases together with randomly selected individuals from the other three mental status categories. In 1994 (time 2), a follow-up study was conducted to reinterview the sample of 360 respondents through the use of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID). The follow-up search resulted in 182 baseline respondents being located alive, plus 38 certified as dead and a residual 140 (38.8% of the baseline sample) categorized as definitely unlocatable. We report results for the outcome of specific nosological entities over the 13-year period. Among the main findings, of the previously (1980 to 1981) identified cases, 42.8% were similarly diagnosed as cases in the follow-up study at time 2; 92.4% of the baseline stage B (1980 to 1981) noncases were also found to be noncases in 1994. "Caseness" was found to be associated with high mortality. Of the subjects interviewed at both cross-sections and diagnosed as having a psychiatric nosological entity at time 1 (1980 to 1981), 67.5% were found to be mentally healthy at time 2 (1994).
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Athens, Greece.
authors.forename: M G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Madianos
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Economou
authors.forename: C N
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Stefanis
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006115:Greece / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000401:mortality / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012075:Remission, Spontaneous; D012494:Sampling Studies; D015996:Survival Rate