Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
New researchCumulative Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders by Young Adulthood: A Prospective Cohort Analysis From the Great Smoky Mountains Study
Section snippets
Participants
The Great Smoky Mountains Study (GSMS) is a longitudinal study of the development of psychiatric disorders and need for mental health services in rural and urban youth.7, 20 A flowchart detailing sample recruitment is provided in Figure 1. A representative sample of three cohorts of children, ages 9, 11, and 13 years at intake, was recruited from 11 counties in western North Carolina. Potential participants were selected from the population of some 12,000 children using a household equal
Cumulative Prevalence of DSM-IV Disorders by Young Adulthood
Unimputed and imputed cumulative prevalence estimates are presented in Table 2. Unimputed data approximates the unlikely assumption that there would be no cases of psychiatric disorder in missing observations. Even with this conservative bias, close to half of individuals across the three cohorts met criteria for a well-specified psychiatric disorder and another 22.5% displayed an NOS disorder only. Together, more than seven of 10 subjects met criteria for a psychiatric disorder using unimputed
Discussion
Estimates of cumulative prevalence of psychiatric disorders from childhood to adulthood have hitherto relied on retrospective recall, despite evidence that forgetting is common for recall beyond 3 to 6 months.30, 31, 32 Even with these concerns, lifetime prevalence estimates from such studies have suggested that about half of adults will meet criteria for a DSM-IV disorder by age 75 years.6 We assessed psychiatric functioning over a limited period at each assessment to minimize forgetting and
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This article is discussed in an editorial by Dr. Kathleen Ries Merikangas on page 213.
This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (MH63970, MH63671, MH48085), the National Institute of Drug Abuse (DA/MH11301), and the William T. Grant Foundation.
Disclosure: Dr. Copeland receives research support from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression. Dr. Shanahan receives research support from the National Institute of Mental Health. Drs. Costello and Angold receives research support from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Drs. Costello and Angold are corecipients of the 2009 National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression Ruane Prize for Outstanding Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research.