Journal
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Volume 2, Issue 2, Pages 119-137Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/2167702613497473
Keywords
psychiatric epidemiology; developmental psychopathology; DSM
Categories
Funding
- National Institute on Aging (NIA) [G032282]
- Medical Research Council [MRK00381X]
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) [HD061298]
- Jacobs Foundation
- NIA [T32 AG000029]
- NICHD [T32 HD07376]
- Yad Hanadiv Rothschild Foundation
- National Institute on Drug Abuse [P30 DA023026]
- New Zealand Health Research Council
- MRC [MR/K00381X/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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Mental disorders traditionally have been viewed as distinct, episodic, and categorical conditions. This view has been challenged by evidence that many disorders are sequentially comorbid, recurrent/chronic, and exist on a continuum. Using the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, we examined the structure of psychopathology, taking into account dimensionality, persistence, co-occurrence, and sequential comorbidity of mental disorders across 20 years, from adolescence to midlife. Psychiatric disorders were initially explained by three higher-order factors (Internalizing, Externalizing, and Thought Disorder) but explained even better with one General Psychopathology dimension. We have called this dimension the p factor because it conceptually parallels a familiar dimension in psychological science: the g factor of general intelligence. Higher p scores are associated with more life impairment, greater familiality, worse developmental histories, and more compromised early-life brain function. The p factor explains why it is challenging to find causes, consequences, biomarkers, and treatments with specificity to individual mental disorders. Transdiagnostic approaches may improve research.
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