International Trends of Psychiatric Epidemiology

Special Article

Psychiatry Investigation 2005;2(1):14-21.

Young Moon Lee, MD1; and Eun Sul Lee, PhD2

¹;Department of Psychiatry, Ajou University School of Medicine, Suwon, Korea, 2;Department of Biostatistics & Epidemiology, University of Texas, School of Public Health, Houston, US

Abstract

<p class="MsoPlainText" style="word-spacing: 1; line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0" align="left"><font face="HY중고딕" size="2">Psychiatric epidemiology traditionally seems to be insufficient to definite measurement and case defi-nition. Since 1900s, there had been numerable studies on prevalence and incidence of mental disorders according to diagnostic measurements. However, there is no con-sistent and clear consensus on psychiatric epidemiologic findings. In spite of difficulties in measurement issues, psychiatric epidemiology has advanced from vague case definition by expert's bias to relatively concise method using scientific technology. Especially, biological advancement and genetic epidemiology made psychiatric epidemiology clearer than past several decades. Even though the more complicated methods on psychiatric epidemiology have good merits to measure between psychopathology and diagnosis, there are many limitations to explain the relationship between social, environmental factors and biological vulnerabilities. In the future direction of psychiatric epidemiology, collaborating measurements biological markers with psychosocial factors will make explain the etiological background of mental disorder easier than past years.

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Key words Psychiatry;Epidemiology;Trends;Review and Mental disorders