most common mental illness

[Anonymous]

ans provided soon

[wolfvgang22]

love these psych ?s

[Anonymous]

The answer is: B
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental disorders in the U.S.; 4 to 14% of general medical patients suffer from anxiety states. Patients with anxiety disorders are more apt to seek help from general physicians or to use the emergency room than are patients with other psychiatric disorders. Mood disorders are the second most common mental disorders in the U.S.; they afflict 5% at any point in time, with a 1-year prevalence of 9.5% for all mood disorders. Prevalence of mood disorders among patients seeking help in a primary care outpatient setting ranges from 4.8 to 8.6% for major depressive disorder to 2.1 to 8.7% for dysthymic disorder. That adds up to 10.2 to 21% of primary care outpatients who suffer from clinically significant mood disorders. They are also high users of nonpsychiatric medical and primary care and of emergency services. Anxiety disorders and mood disorders should be a part of the differential diagnosis when a patient seeks help for depressive symptoms.

[tRmedic21]

Where do you get this information? I am just curious to make certain of it's validity.

My Beh Sci prof told me that Specific Phobia (which I would correlate with your option A) was the most common, affecting some 40% of Americans. When you consider how many people are afraid of dogs, heights, closed spaces, etc., this makes sense to me.

Just wondering what others think....

[Anonymous]

Hi Medic. This question and answer was from the usmle easy question bank. They've been known to have mistakes, so I wouldn't completely rely on them, but I double checked this answer and now agree with it. Here's why.

1. Not everyone that has a "phobia" of something specific (spiders, heights, etc) has a "phobic disorder". There are certain DSM criteria they must fit in order to be diagnosed with that, and relative few people would fit the criteria, yet they can still have an extreme "fear" of something specific.

2. Phobic disorders are classified under anxiety disorders, along with Acute Stress Disorder, Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia Without History of Panic Disorder, Social Phobia, Specific Phobia (formerly Simple Phobia) Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, etc. Knowing this, it's logical to conclude that neither OCD nor Phobic disorders can be more common than the parent group of disorders that includes them.

In my opinion, the question was not very fair, but understanding it is what matters. Hope this helps.


ref: usmle easy, kaplan behavioral pg 101-102, mentalhealth.com, hcpc.uth.tmc.edu