Background — In order to minimise retrospective recall in developing estimates of the prevalence of mental dis-orders in the general population, we conducted a prospective study of a cohort of youth from Zurich, Switzerland. Method — A 20 year prospective study of a community-based cohort aged 19-20 from Zurich Switzerland. The sample was enriched by subjects scoring high on the Symptom Checklist 90 R (Derogatis, 1977). A semi-structured diagnostic interview was administered by clinically experienced psychologists and psychiatrists. The six interviews from 1979 to 1999 assessed diagnoses and sub-threshold manifestations of major diagnostic categories (with the exception of schizophrenia) for the past twelve months, depending on the current DSM versions (DSM-IH, DSM-HI R, DSM-IV). Additional information on symptoms and treatment were collected for the years between the interviews. The reported prevalence rates are weighted for stratified sampling and cumulate the one-year rates of the six interviews. Results — The cumulative weighted prevalence rates for any psychiatric disorder were 48.6% excluding, and 57.7% including tobacco dependence. In addition 29.2% and 21.8%, respectively manifested sub-diagnostic syndromes. Overall there were no significant gender differences. The corresponding treatment prevalence rates were 22.4% and 31.1%, respectively for the diagnostic subjects and 6.9% and 6.1 %, respectively for the sub-diagnostic groups. The total treatment prevalence rate was 37.2% of the population (males 30.0%, females 44.1%). Conclusions — Our findings reveal that psychiatric disorders are quite common in the general population. When the spectra of mental disorders are considered, nearly three quarters of the general population will have manifested at least one of the mental disorders across their lifetime. Limitations — The data are based on a relatively small sample; a single age cohort, and the study was conducted in Zurich, Switzerland. These study features may diminish the generalisability of the findings.

Declaration of Interest: this work was supported by Grant 3200-050881.97/1 of the Swiss National Science Foundation, and Research Scientist Development Awards (MH 46376 and DA00293) from the US National Institutes of Health (Dr. Merikangas).

Background. Military samples provide an excellent context to systematically ascertain hospitalization for severe psychiatric disorders. The National Collaborative Study of Early Psychosis and Suicide (NCSEPS), a collaborative study of psychiatric disorders in the US Armed Forces, estimated rates of first hospitalization in the military for three psychiatric disorders: bipolar disorder (BD), major depressive disorder (MDD) and schizophrenia.

Method. First hospitalizations for BD, MDD and schizophrenia were ascertained from military records for active duty personnel between 1992 and 1996. Rates were estimated as dynamic incidence (using all military personnel on active duty at the midpoint of each year as the denominator) and cohort incidence (using all military personnel aged 18–25 entering active duty between 1992 and 1996 to estimate person-years at risk).

Results. For all three disorders, 8723 hospitalizations were observed in 8120136 person-years for a rate of 10·7/10000 [95% confidence interval (CI) 10·5–11·0]. The rate for BD was 2·0 (95% CI 1·9–2·1), for MDD, 7·2 (95% CI 7·0–7·3), and for schizophrenia, 1·6 (95% CI 1·5–1·7). Rates for BD and MDD were greater in females than in males [for BD, rate ratio (RR) 2·0, 95% CI 1·7–2·2; for MDD, RR 2·9, 95% CI 2·7–3·1], but no sex difference was found for schizophrenia. Blacks had lower rates than whites of BD (RR 0·8, 95% CI 0·7–0·9) and MDD (RR 0·8, 95% CI 0·8–0·9), but a higher rate of schizophrenia (RR 1·5, 95% CI 1·3–1·7).

Conclusions. This study underscores the human and financial burden that psychiatric disorders place on the US Armed Forces.

This paper reports the results of a high-risk study of children under age 18 of parents who served as probands in a family study of comorbidity of substance abuse and anxiety disorders. There was a strong degree of specificity of familial aggregation of both the anxiety disorders and substance disorders. Rates of conduct disorder and depression were elevated among offspring of all affected parents. Inclusion of co-parent disorders in the evaluation of familial transmission in the present study strengthened the findings regarding the specificity of transmission of the anxiety disorders and the links between both parental substance abuse and antisocial personality with child conduct disorder.

Objectives of this study were to ascertain risk and protective factors in the adjustment of 78 school-age and teenage offspring of opioid- and cocaine-abusing mothers. Using a multimethod, multiinformant approach, child outcomes were operationalized via lifetime psychiatric diagnoses and everyday social competence (each based on both mother and child reports), and dimensional assessments of symptoms (mother report). Risk/protective factors examined included the child sociodemographic attributes of gender, age, and ethnicity, aspects of maternal psychopathology, and both mother's and children's cognitive functioning. Results revealed that greater child maladjustment was linked with increasing age, Caucasian (as opposed to African American) ethnicity, severity of maternal psychiatric disturbance, higher maternal cognitive abilities (among African Americans) and lower child cognitive abilities (among Caucasians). Limitations of the study are discussed, as are implications of findings for future research.

A twofold increase in the prevalence of depression among women has been consistently observed. Several possible explanations, including methodological, endocrine, psychosocial, and genetic factors, have been proposed for the increased rates of depression among women. This paper describes the analysis of data from a family-genetic study of depressed probands to examine whether genetic factors can explain the preponderance of depressed females. Our data indicate that the excess of females with major depression cannot be attributed to increased genetic loading for depression in women. Other factors which may explain increased rates of major depression in women are discussed.