Prevalence of Psychiatric Cases in Davao City

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Background of the Study The prevalence of psychiatric cases or mental disorders has been studied around the world, providing estimates on how common mental disorders are. Different criteria or thresholds of severity have sometimes been used. National and international figures are typically estimated by large-scale surveys of self-reported symptoms up to the time of assessment; sometimes a figure is calculated for the occurrence of disorder in the week, month or year prior to assessment–a point or period prevalence; sometimes the figure is for a person's lifetime prior to assessment–the so-called lifetime prevalence. (H.Friedman,Sept.2011) According to Kessler, et al (2005), psychiatric cases are common in the United States and internationally. An estimated 26.2% of Americans ages 18 and older about one in four adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. When applied to the 2004 U.S. Census residential population estimate for ages 18 and older, this figure translates to 57.7 million people. Even though mental disorders are widespread in the population, the main burden of illness is concentrated in a much smaller proportion — about 6%, or 1 in 17 — who suffer from a serious mental illness. In addition, mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. and Canada. Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time. Nearly half (45%) of those with any mental disorder meet criteria for 2 or more disorders, with severity strongly related to morbidity. However, in the Philippines, a survey conducted by the National Statistics Office (N.S.O.) in 2000, revealed that psychiatric cases or mental illness is the "third most common form of disability" after visual and hearing impairments. The study conducted in 2000 also said that there was an average of 88 reported
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