38% of Europeans affected by mental disease

Arguably, one of the most profound findings of 2011 was an epidemiological report on the mental health status of the European Union. Hans-Ulrich Wittchen and his international team of mental health experts have unraveled striking data on just how extensively disorders of the brain impact European society, and if the trend has been changing over the last three decades.   

With an initial goal to systematically assess the prevalence and burden of neurological and mental disorders in the European Union, experts from each disease category met and combined their data, only to find that it was difficult to segregate prevalence between mental and neurological disorders, due to significant overlap. However, it was possible to assess the burden of mental and neurological disease separately, when expressed as disability adjusted life years. Previous knowledge on this subject has been sparse - the World Health Organization reported an estimated 13% of global health burden to be from mental disorders. The World Mental Health Survey quotes that one in three adults suffers from a mental disorder.

Mental and Neurological Disorders Come to the Forefront: Significant Health Burden on Society

Wittchen and colleagues set out to sample all of the EU countries as well as Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland. The team combined retrospective studies, consistent reanalyses of existing epidemiological datasets and supplementary survey data from national experts to gather the best possible comprehensive dataset. 19 epidemiological panels were dispatched and at least one international expert was recruited per diagnostic group. Data was collected as far back as 1980, when the first diagnostic criteria were published on an international level (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD)).
The results were startling: 38% of all Europeans are affected by disorders of the brain. Combined, mental and neurological diseases comprise Europe's largest disease burden, in terms of disability adjusted life years. The highest proportion of this burden was due to anxiety disorder, unipolar depression and insomnia.
Previously, Wittchen and colleagues had published a similar report in 2005, where the numbers were significantly more conservative, citing that 27% of the EU population are affected by mental disorder. However, this study produced a much more restrictive estimate due to age restrictions of the sample (only adults and not kids nor elderly were included), and a much more limited set of criteria for mental disorders. This time around, the team decided to get an unrestricted estimate regardless of age range or disease type.

Wittchen et al., Eur. Neuropsychopharmacol, 2011
Wittchen and Jacobi, Eur. Neuropsychopharmacol, 2005
World Health Organization, The Global Burden of Disease, 2004 Update (WHO, 2008)


By Gina Eom, Alumna MedNeuro 

this article originally appeared in CNS Volume 5, Issue 1, Mental Health Disorders