Common mental disorders in South west Ethiopia

Mental disorders are a global public health agenda and about 14% of the global burden of disease has been attributed to neuropsychiatric disorders, mostly due to the chronically disabling nature of depression, other common mental disorders and substance use disorders. This is expected to rise to 15% by the year 2020 which would make the disorders the second leading cause of health disability worldwide. Unipolar depressive disorders alone lead to 12.15% of years lived with disability, and rank as the third leading contributor to the global burden of diseases. More than 150 million persons suffer from depression at any point in time and nearly 1 million commit suicide every year. Four of the six leading causes of years lived with disability are due to neuropsychiatric disorders (depression, alcohol-use disorders, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder). More than 90 million suffer from an alcohol or other substance use disorders.The burden will be the worst in low and middle income countries where the impact of poverty and other communicable diseases are highly rampant. According to projections in 2030 depression will be the leading cause of disability globally accounting for approximately 6% of the total disability.

Community based surveys across the world revealed that the prevalence of common mental disorders among the general populations is very high. In the United States (US) national Comorbidity survey, lifetime prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders was 20.8% and 28.8%, respectivel.Twelve-month prevalence estimates of mood and anxiety range from 6.6% to 18.1% across surveys from Australia and the US community . In the European countries such as Greece and Sweden the magnitude of common mental disorders is high ranging from 14-17.2% while in eastern Asia the prevalence is around 8.8%. Read more......