Addiction, Mental Illness Common in U.S.June 7, 2005
Research Summary
About half of all Americans will experience some sort of diagnosable mental illness or addiction problems during their lifetime, according to researchers from Harvard Medical School.WebMD reported June 7 that Ronald Kessler, M.D., and colleagues said that about a quarter of American adults have addiction or mental-health problems, ranging from mild to severe, each year. But few get treatment.
The Harvard researchers interviewed 9,200 adults and found that in a given year, 26 percent had a mental disorder, including alcohol or other drug abuse. Eighteen percent of participants had suffered from anxiety, while 9.5 percent had mood disorders (such as depression), 9 percent had impulse-control problems, and 3.8 percent had addiction problems. About 40 percent of cases were mild, 37 percent were moderate, and 22 percent were classified as serious.
Over the course of a lifetime, 29 percent of Americans will have anxiety disorders, 21 percent will have mood disorders, 25 percent will have impulse-control disorders, and 15 percent will have addictive disorders, the researchers estimated. Many anxiety and impulse-control disorders start in adolescence -- often by age 11 -- the authors noted.
The study was published in the June 2005 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
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