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Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of mental disorders in the Saudi National Mental Health Survey

Open Access | CC BY-NC-ND
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International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research

10.1002/mpr.1836

Abstract

Objectives
To estimate lifetime prevalence of mental disorders in the Saudi National Mental Health Survey (SNMHS).
Methods
The SNMHS is a face-to-face community epidemiological survey in a nationally representative household sample of citizens ages 15–65 in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) (n = 4,004). The World Health Organization (WHO) Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) was used to estimate lifetime prevalence of common DSM-IV mental disorders.
Results
Estimated lifetime prevalence of any DSM-IV/CIDI disorder is 34.2% and lifetime morbid risk is 38.0%. Anxiety disorders are by far the most prevalent (23.2%) followed by disruptive behavior (11.2%), mood (9.3%), eating (6.1%), and substance use (4.0%) disorders. Synthetic estimates of cohort effects suggest that prevalence of many disorders has increased in recent cohorts. Onsets typically occur in childhood for a number of anxiety and disruptive behavior disorders and in adolescence or early adulthood for most other disorders, although age-of-onset distributions for drug abuse is much later (median age of 31) than in CIDI surveys carried out in other high-income countries.
Conclusions
Lifetime mental disorders are highly prevalent in Saudi Arabia and typically have early ages-of-onset.

Keywords

Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), mental disorders, prevalence, Saudi National Mental Health Survey (SNMHS), World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative

Citation

, , , , , , , , & (). Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of mental disorders in the Saudi National Mental Health Survey. Int J Methods Psychiatr Res, , doi: 10.1002/mpr.1836