Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology

BACKGROUND: Social exclusion is a multidimensional concept referring processes which restrict the ability of individuals or groups to participate fully in society. While social exclusion has been used to explore patterns of disadvantage, it has been difficult to measure. Thus, we aimed to use population-based data to measure social exclusion and its constituent domains and to describe its distribution in England. METHODS: We used data from Understanding Society in 2009/2010 develop a multidimensional measurement approach, replicated in 2018/2019...

PURPOSE: Many people with mental illness experience self-stigma and stigma-related stress and struggle with decisions whether to disclose their condition to others. The peer-led Honest, Open, Proud (HOP) group program supports them in their disclosure decisions. In randomized controlled trials, HOP has shown positive effects on self-stigma and stigma stress on average. This study examined individual predictors of HOP outcomes and tested the hypothesis that stigma stress reduction at the end of HOP mediates positive HOP effects at follow-up...

PURPOSE: It is not known whether the elevated suicide risk in certain occupations, such as health care professionals, is partly attributable to a selection of individuals with prior vulnerability. We aimed to determine the risk of suicide and self-harm already in students entering different university programs. METHODS: We used national registers to identify 621,218 Swedish residents aged 18-39 years with registration for a university program 1993-2013. Outcomes were suicide and self-harm within three years...

PURPOSE: The self-medication hypothesis suggests people may develop Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) or Non-Alcohol Substance Use Disorder (NA-SUD) following PTSD as a maladaptive way of coping with PTSD symptoms. Given that an accumulation of trauma experiences and interpersonal trauma increase the likelihood and severity of PTSD, we sought to determine whether the number and type of traumas additionally predict AUD and NA-SUD following PTSD. METHODS: We analysed data from 36,309 adult participants in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III (NESARC-III) study (M = 45...

PURPOSE: Public mental health services (MHS) are crucial in preventing psychiatric disability pensions (DP). We studied the associations between mood disorder DP risk and the characteristics of Finnish municipalities' MHS provision using the ESMS-R mapping tool and Finnish population registers, based on first-time granted mood disorder DPs between 2010 and 2015. METHODS: The final data set included 13,783 first-time mood disorder DP recipients and 1088 mental health service units in 104 municipalities...

PURPOSE: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is prevalent in adolescents. Increase in levels of general anxiety since 2010's has been observed in young people. Little is known of time trends in symptoms of social anxiety during 2010's, of pre- to during-COVID-19 era changes, or of associations between social anxiety symptoms and pandemic severity, distance education, and COVID-19-related experiences in young people. METHODS: We examined social anxiety symptoms, their temporal changes, and their associations with COVID-19 related factors in a sample of 450 000 13-to-20-year-old Finns in 2013-2021...

BACKGROUND: Various forms of interpersonal abuse (e.g., physical, emotional, sexual) and cannabis use across the lifespan have both been known to increase odds of psychotic experiences; however, there have been few studies examining their separate and joint effects in the United States. METHODS: We analyzed data from the Healthy Minds Study (2020-2021) and used multivariable logistic regression and interaction contrast ratios to assess separate and joint effects of interpersonal abuse (past 12 months) and cannabis use (past 30 days) on psychotic experiences (past 12 months)...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

PURPOSE: Mental health research has powerfully documented inequities related to characteristics, such as ethnicity and gender. Yet how and where disparities like unmet need occur have been more elusive. Drawing from a now modest body of research that deployed the Network Episode Model (NEM), we examine how individuals create patterns of response to mental health problems, influenced by the culture and resources embedded in their social networks. METHODS: The Person-to-Person Health Interview Study (P2P; N ~ 2,700, 2018-2021) provides representative, community-based, NEM-tailored data...

PURPOSE: The persistent gap between population indicators of poor mental health and the uptake of services raises questions about similarities and differences between social and medical/psychiatric constructions. Rarely do studies have assessments from different perspectives to examine whether and how lay individuals and professionals diverge. METHODS: Data from the Person-to-Person Health Interview Study (P2P), a representative U.S. state sample (N ~ 2700) are used to examine the overlap and correlates of three diverse perspectives-self-reported mental health, a self/other problem recognition, and the CAT-MH™ a validated, computer adaptive test for psychopathology screening...

PURPOSE: Mental distress has become a major public health concern. Temporal trends in psychological distress are complex and depend on numerous factors. In this study, we examined age-period-cohort effects for mental distress including gender and German region over a 15 years' time span. METHODS: Data on mental distress from ten cross-sectional surveys of the general German population, covering the years from 2006 to 2021, was used. Hierarchical age-period-cohort analyses including gender and German region as predictors were performed to disentangle age, period, and cohort effects...

PURPOSE: Mental disorders are a public health concern with media as a primary source of information. This study aims to present current research on how the media reports mental disorders. METHODS: This study conducted a bibliometric analysis of 130 published studies on media coverage of mental disorders, focusing on the research themes and research trends of the published studies. RESULTS: The results show that media coverage of mental disorders was generally negative and influenced by socio-demographic factors (e...

BACKGROUND: Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) is a new disorder included in ICD-11 (WHO, 2018). There is a growing body of literature surrounding the prevalence and correlates of ICD-11 PGD symptoms as assessed using various measures. This study was the first to assess levels of ICD-11 PGD symptoms as measured by the International Prolonged Grief Disorder Scale (IPGDS), a self-report scale directly aligned with the ICD-11 definition of PGD, among the United Kingdom adult general population, and identify correlates...

BACKGROUND: Mental health problems are prevalent among university students worldwide. Studies have shown that most students do not disclose and do not get the psychological help and support they need. OBJECTIVES: This survey aims to investigate the intentions to seek psychological counseling (ISC) among university students, their attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help (ATSPPH), and the predictors of those intentions and attitudes including stigma...

PURPOSE: Prenatal factors such as maternal stress, infection and nutrition affect fetal brain development and may also influence later risk for dementia. The purpose of this systematic review was to provide an overview of all studies which investigated the association between prenatal factors and later risk for dementia. METHODS: We systematically searched MEDLINE and Embase for original human studies reporting on associations between prenatal factors and dementia from inception to 23 November 2022...

PURPOSE: Research has highlighted that the exposure of healthcare professionals to the COVID-19 pandemic for over two years can lead to the development and persistence of symptoms characteristic of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), with serious consequences on both the individual well-being and the quality of care provided. The present study was aimed at investigating the role of benefit finding in moderating post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) over time. METHODS: The longitudinal study, conducted between April and October 2020, involved 226 Italian health workers (44...

PURPOSE: The incidence of self-harm is an important indicator in suicide surveillance and a target outcome for suicide prevention. Self-harm rates vary by geographic location and rurality appears to be a risk factor. The objectives of this study were to estimate rates of self-harm hospitalization in Canada over a 5-year period by sex and age group, and examine relationships between self-harm and rurality. METHODS: Hospitalizations related to self-harm were identified in a national dataset (the Discharge Abstract Database) for all patients aged 10 years or older who were discharged from hospital between 2015 and 2019...

PURPOSE: Evidence suggests an increase of depression and anxiety symptoms during the Covid-19 pandemic but most studies relied on cross-sectional designs and/or small samples, and they often overlooked subgroup effects in the impact of the lockdown. We investigated the effect of the pandemic on depression and anxiety symptoms, and whether it differed by employment situation and alcohol consumption. METHODS: This longitudinal study used 23 waves of the Covid-Questionnaire (April 2020-July 2021), within the Lifelines cohort from the Netherlands (n = 76,254)...

An emerging body of research has evidenced the negative influence of using and being exposed to social networking sites (SNSs) on body image. Furthermore, it has been postulated that SNS use might be related with onset and persistence of eating disorders (EDs) psychopathology. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the complex interplay between problematic Instagram use (PIU) (conceptualized as a potential behavioral addiction comprising withdrawal, conflict, tolerance, salience, mood modification and relapse) and ED psychopathology, by means of an explanatory structural equation model...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.