Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T23:14:23.309Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Diagnosis and outcome: depression and anxiety in a general population

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2011

Jane M. Murphy*
Affiliation:
From Harvard Program in Psychiatric Epidemiology, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Donald C. Olivier
Affiliation:
From Harvard Program in Psychiatric Epidemiology, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Arthur M. Sobol
Affiliation:
From Harvard Program in Psychiatric Epidemiology, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Richard R. Monson
Affiliation:
From Harvard Program in Psychiatric Epidemiology, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Alexander H. Leighton
Affiliation:
From Harvard Program in Psychiatric Epidemiology, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Jane M. Murphy, Harvard Program in Psychiatric Epidemiology, Department of Psychiatry, 703 Warren Building, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA.

Synopsis

An assessment of the long-term outcome for depression and anxiety disorders in a general population was made as part of the Stirling County Study. Measuring outcome as a dichotomy between experiencing recurrent episodes or not during a 17-year cohort interval, it was found that 56% of the ‘cases’ had a poor prognosis. While sex, age and level of severity were not significantly related to outcome, an initial diagnosis of depression was predictive of unfavourable prognosis. Only a few of these ‘cases’ received psychiatric specialty treatment. Some disorders in the community appear, however, to be as serious as those that come to the attention of psychiatrists.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association (1980). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn). APA: Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Bebbington, P., Hurry, J., Tennant, C, Sturt, E. & Wing, J. K. (1981). Epidemiology of mental disorders in Camberwell. Psychological Medicine 11, 561579.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beiser, M. (1971). A psychiatric follow-up study of ‘normal’ adults. American Journal of Psychiatry 127, 14641472.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bishop, Y. M. M., Fienberg, S. E. & Holland, P. (1975). Discrete Multivariate Analysis: Theory and Practice. MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Bland, R. C. & Orn, H. (1978). Fourteen year outcome in early schizophrenia. Acta Psychialrica Scandinavica 58, 327338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bland, R. C. & Orn, H. (1982). Course and outcome in affective disorders. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 27, 573578.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, G. W., Bone, M., Delison, B. & Wing, J. K. (1966). Schizophrenia and Social Care. Oxford University Press: London.Google Scholar
Cloninger, C. R., Martin, R. L., Guze, S. B. & Clayton, P. J. (1985). Diagnosis and prognosis in schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 42, 1525.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Figueiredo, J. (1983). The law of sociocultural demoralization. Social Psychiatry 18, 7378.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Derogatis, L. R., Lipman, R. S., Covi, L. & Rickels, K. (1972). Factorial invariance of symptom dimensions in anxious and depressive neuroses. Archives of General Psychiatry 27, 659665.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dohrenwend, B. P., Dohrenwend, B. S., Gould, M. S., Link, B., Neugebauer, R. & Wunsch-Hitzig, R. (eds.) (1980). Menial Illness in the United States Epidemiological Estimates. Praeger: New York.Google Scholar
Finlay-Jones, R. & Brown, G. W. (1981). Types of stressful life events and onset of anxiety and depressive disorders. Psychological Medicine 11, 803815.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frank, J. D. (1974). Psychotherapy: the restoration of morale. American Journal of Psychiatry 131, 271274.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gillis, L. S. & Stone, G. L. (1973). A follow-up study of psychiatric disturbance in a Cape Coloured Community. British Journal of Psychiatry 123, 279283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gurney, C, Roth, M., Garside, R. F., Kerr, T. A. & Schapira, K. (1972). Studies in the classification of affective disorders: the relationship between anxiety states and depressive illnesses – II. British Journal of Psychiatry 121, 162166.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hagnell, O. (1981). The Lundby study on psychiatric morbidity (Sweden). In Prospective Longitudinal Research. An Empirical Basis for the Primary Prevention of Psychosocial Disorders (ed. Mednick, S. A. and Baert, A. E.), pp. 189206. Oxford University Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Hagnell, O. & Rorsman, B. (1978). Suicide and endogenous depression with somatic symptoms in the Lundby Study. Neuropsychobiology 4, 180187.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hughes, C. C.Tremblay, M. A.. Rapoport, R. N. & Leighlon, A. H. (1960). People of Cove and Woodlot: The Stirling County Study, Vol. 2. Basic Books: New York.Google Scholar
Keller, M. B. & Shapiro, R. W. (1982). ‘Double depression’: superimposition of acute depressive episodes on chronic depressive disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry 139, 438442.Google ScholarPubMed
Klerman, G. L. (1980). Long-term outcomes of neurotic depressions. In Human Functioning in Longitudinal Perspective· Normal and Psychopathic Populations (ed. Sells, S. B., Crandall, R.Roff, M.Strauss, J. S., and Poulin, W), pp. 5873. Macmillan of Canada Agincourt, Ontario.Google Scholar
Langfeldt, G. (1956). The prognosis of schizophrenia. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica Suppl. 110.Google Scholar
Leckman, J. F., Merikangas, K. R., Pauls, D. L., Prusoff, B. A. & Weissman, M. M. (1983). Anxiety disorders and depression: contradictions between family study data and DSM-III conventions. American Journal of Psychiatry 140, 880882.Google ScholarPubMed
Leighton, A. H. (1959). My Name Is Legion: The Stirling County Study of Psychiatric Disorder and Social Environment, Vol. 1. Basic Books: New York.Google Scholar
Leighton, A. H., Leighton, D. C. & Danley, R. A. (1966). Validity in mental health surveys. Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal 11, 167178.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leighton, D. C., Harding, J. S., Macklin, D. B., Macmillan, A. M. & Leighton, A. H. (1963). The Character of Danger. The Stirling County Study, Vol. 3. Basic Books: New York.Google Scholar
Link, B. & Dohrenwend, B. P. (1980). Formulation of hypotheses about the true prevalence of demoralization in the United States. In Mental Illness in the United States: Epidemiological Estimates (Dohrenwend, B. P.Dohrenwend, B. S.Gould, M. S.Link, B.Neugebauer, R. and Wunsch-Hitzig, R.), pp. 114132. Praeger: New York.Google Scholar
Macmillan, A M. (1957). The Health Opinion Survey: technique for estimating prevalence of psychoneurotic and related types of disorders in communities. Psychological Reports 3, 325339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendels, J, Weinstein, N. & Cochrane, C. (1972). The relationship between depression and anxiety Archives of General Psychiatry 27, 649653.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murphy, J. M. (1980). Continuities in community-based psychiatric epidemiology. Archives of General Psychiatry 37, 12151223.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murphy, J. M., Sobol, A. M., Neff, R. K., Olivier, D. C. & Leighton, A. H. (1984). Stability of prevalence: depression and anxiety disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry 41, 990997.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murphy, J. M., Neff, R. K., Sobol, A. M., Rice, J. X. & Olivier, D. C. (1985). Computer diagnosis of depression and anxiety: the Stirling County Study. Psychological Medicine 15, 99112.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Myers, J. K., Weissman, M. M., Tischler, G. L., Holzer, C. E., Leaf, P. J., Orvaschel, H., Anthony, J. C, Boyd, J. H., Burke, J B., Kramer, M. & Stoltzman, R. (1984). Six-month prevalence of psychiatric disorders in three communities. Archives of General Psychiatry 41, 959967.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Olivier, D. C. & Neff, R. K. (1976). LOGLIN 1.0 User's Guide. Harvard University School of Public Health: Boston, Mass.Google Scholar
Prudo, R., Harris, T. & Brown, G. W. (1984). Psychiatric disorder in a rural and urban population: 3. Social integration and the morphology of affective disorder. Psychological Medicine 14, 327345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prusoff, B. & Klerman, G. L. (1974). Differentiating depressed from anxious neurotic outpatients: use of discriminant function analysis for separation of neurotic affective states. Archives of General Psychiatry 30, 302309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, M., Gurney, C., Garside, R. F. & Kerr, T. A. (1972). Studies in the classification of affective disorders: the relationship between anxiety states and depressive illnesses–I. British Journal of Psychiatry 121, 147161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwab, J. J., Bell, R A., Warheit, G.J. & Schwab, R. B. (1979). Social Order and Mental Health: The Florida Health Study. Brunner/Mazel: New YorkGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, S., Skinner, E. A., Kessler, L. G., Von Korff, M., German, P. S., Tischler, G. L., Leaf, P. J., Benham, L., Cottier, L. & Regier, D. A. (1984). Utilization of health and mental health services. Archives of General Psychiatry 41, 971978.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Srole, L. & Fisher, A. K. (1980). The Midtown Manhattan Longitudinal Study vs. ‘The Mental Paradise Lost Doctrine’. Archives of General Psychiatry 37, 209221.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Strauss, J. S. & Carpenter, W. T. (1974). The prediction of outcome in schizophrenia: II. Relationships between predictor and outcome variables. Archives of General Psychiatry 31, 3742.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tsuang, M. T., Woolson, R. F. & Fleming, J. A. (1979). Long-term outcome of major psychoses: I. Schizophrenia and affective disorders compared with psychiatrically symptom-free surgical conditions. Archives of General Psychiatry 36, 12951301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wing, J. K., Cooper, J. E. & Sartonus, N. (1974). The Measurement and Classification of Psychiatric Symptoms. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (1979). Schizophrenia. An International Follow-up Study. John Wiley: New York.Google Scholar