Implementing the World Mental Health Survey Initiative in Portugal – rationale, design and fieldwork procedures

Abstract

BackgroundThe World Mental Health Survey Initiative was designed to evaluate the prevalence, the correlates, the impact and the treatment patterns of mental disorders. This paper describes the rationale and the methodological details regarding the implementation of the survey in Portugal, a country that still lacks representative epidemiological data about psychiatric disorders.MethodsThe World Mental Health Survey is a cross-sectional study with a representative sample of the Portuguese population, aged 18 or older, based on official census information. The WMH-Composite International Diagnostic Interview, adapted to the Portuguese language by a group of bilingual experts, was used to evaluate the mental health status, disorder severity, impairment, use of services and treatment. Interviews were administered face-to-face at respondent’s dwellings, which were selected from a nationally representative multi-stage clustered area probability sample of households. The survey was administered using computer-assisted personal interview methods by trained lay interviewers. Data quality was strictly controlled in order to ensure the reliability and validity of the collected information.ResultsA total of 3,849 people completed the main survey, with 2,060 completing the long interview, with a response rate of 57.3%. Data cleaning was conducted in collaboration with the WMHSI Data Analysis Coordination Centre at the Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School. Collected information will provide lifetime and 12-month mental disorders diagnoses, according to the International Classification of Diseases and to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.ConclusionsThe findings of this study could have a major influence in mental health care policy planning efforts over the next years, specially in a country that still has a significant level of unmet needs regarding mental health services organization, delivery of care and epidemiological research.

Influence of sociodemographic and clinical characteristics on the quality of life of patients with schizophrenia

“…Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder (3) and as such, quality of life is significantly low in people suffering from it (1,4) . This disorder is considered as one of the main causes of disability among young adults (5) . With psychiatric deinstitutionalization, the quality of life of people with severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia began to be the target of a new array of investigations.…”

Inpatient Profile of Patients with Major Depression in Portuguese National Health System Hospitals, in 2008 and 2013: Variation in a Time of Economic Crisis

“…Mental health has been the most sensitive area to economic changes, and in periods of economic crisis there is an increase in the number of cases of major depression and the number of relapses. As stated by Xavier et al (2013), this is a period of high prevalence of mental illness, with extremely unfavourable social health determinants and numerous unmet needs in terms of health services, health care delivery and epidemiological research in the mental health sector (Caldas-de-Almeida and Xavier 2013).…”

“…In 2013, Xavier et al (2013) defined the contextual situation as a high prevalence of mental illness scenario with extremely unfavourable social determinants of health, exacerbated by the scientific research deficit in the mental health sector, especially regarding care delivery, organisational structures and epidemiological data .…”

A Gaussian random field model for similarity-based smoothing in Bayesian disease mapping

“…The contents of this chapter is based on the paper: Implementing the World Mental Health Survey Initiative in Portugal -rationale, design and fieldwork procedures [94] and in the paper: Alcohol abuse disorder prevalence and its distribution across Portugal. A disease mapping approach [7].…”

“…Firstly, we clarify the above concepts, and secondly, after focusing on DM, we apply several models to Portuguese Alcohol Abuse Disorder (AAD) data, collected by the WMHSI, as specified in Xavier et al [94] and in Chapter 3.…”