Background: Addressing the growing burden of mental
diseases is a public health priority. Nevertheless,
many countries lack reliable estimates of the proportion
of the population affected, which are crucial for
health and social policy planning. This study aimed to
collect existing evidence on the prevalence of mental
diseases in Austria.
Methods: A systematic review was conducted using
MeSH, EMTREE and free-text terms in seven bibliographic
databases. In addition, the references of included
papers and relevant Austria-specific websites
were searched. Articles published after 1996 pertaining
to the Austrian adult population and presenting
prevalence data for mental diseases were included in
the analysis.
Results: A total of 2612 records were identified in the
database search, 19 of which were included in the
analysis, 13 were community-based studies and 6 examined institutionalized populations. Sample sizes
ranged from 200 to 15,474. The evidence was centered
around depression (n= 6, 32%), eating disorders
(n= 4, 21%) and alcohol dependence (n= 3, 16%).
While most studies (n= 10, 53%) used questionnaires
and scales to identify mental diseases, seven studies
used structured clinical interviews, and two studies
examined use of psychotropic drugs. Due to the diversity
of methodologies, no statistical pooling of prevalence
estimates was possible.
Conclusion: Information on the prevalence of mental
diseases in Austria is limited and comparability between
studies is restricted. A variety of diagnostic instruments,
targeted populations and investigated diseases
contribute to discrepancies in the prevalence
rates. A systematic, large-scale study on the prevalence
of mental diseases in Austria is needed for comprehensive
and robust epidemiological evidence.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VIENNA/oai:epub.wu-wien.ac.at:6085 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Laszewska, Agata, Ă–sterle, August, Wancata, Johannes, Simon, Judit |
| Publisher | Springer Nature |
| Source Sets | Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, PeerReviewed |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) |
| Relation | https://doi.org/10.1007/s00508-018-1316-1, https://link.springer.com/, http://epub.wu.ac.at/6085/ |
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