Journal
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
Volume 154, Issue 10, Pages 891-894Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/aje/154.10.891
Keywords
epidemiologic methods; health surveys; morbidity; psychiatry
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The objective was to study the effect of serious psychiatric disorders on participation in a general health population study. This was done by linking the records of the Second Tromso Health Study to the case register of a mental hospital. The participants in the Second Tromso Health Study were 21,441 persons, the total population of men aged 20-54 and women aged 20-49 years who resided in Tromso, Norway, in 1979. The authors found that both men and women with psychiatric illness had approximately 20% lower attendance rates. Nonattenders to the survey had 2.5 times higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders than did attenders of both sexes. Age, marital status, and various psychiatric diagnoses were all significant predictors of nonattendance. Nonattendance led to underestimation of the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the population. The conclusion is that in general health studies, even those with high attendance rates, the estimates of prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the population are seriously affected by nonattendance. Prevalence ratios between groups of the population were not much affected by nonattendance.
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