Rates of mental illness in China higher than previously reported, new study says

From the Wall Street Journal health blog:

Rates of mental illness in the China are higher than previously estimated, according to a new study in the Lancet that surveyed 113 million adults, or 12% of the Chinese population.

Over a one-month period, those with a mood disorder such as depression totaled 6.1% of the population while 5.6% suffered from an anxiety disorder and 5.9% from a substance abuse disorder. The study found 1% suffered from a psychotic disorder, meaning some condition that involves having a distorted sense of reality. Overall, 17.5% of the population surveyed had some mental disorder.

Seventy percent of Chinese individuals with psychotic disorders had received professional help at some point, according to the Lancet study. But, among those with non-psychotic disorder, only 12% had ever received treatment, and nearly half who said they sought help had received it from non-mental health professional.

The study involved surveying individuals from four different provinces between 2001 and 2005.

“Projection of our results to all of China suggests that 173 million adults in the country have a mental disorder and 158 million of these have never received any type of professional help for their condition,” wrote the authors, part of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention in Beijing Hui Long Guan Hospital. “A major redistribution of societal and health resources is needed to address a problem of this size and will only happen with the active participation (or, at least, concordance) of powerful political, economic, social, and professional stakeholders in the community,” they said.