Prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in the adult population of Mamre : an empirical and methodological investigation

A broad age-range community study was undertaken to estimate the base-line prevalence of mental disorder in the adult population of Mamre. The study further undertook to investigate a possible association between mental disorder and specified socio-demographic variables; to obtain basic information on health care utilization and attitudes to health services currently available in Mamre; and to investigate the validity of the Self Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ) (Harding et al., 1980) as a first-stage screen in a community sample in the South African context. The general population of Mamre, a "coloured" community of approximately 5000 and presently undergoing transition from rural to urban status, was selected for study as there was an indication of a high rate of mental disorder among clinic attenders (Miller et al., 1991). Using a cross-sectional descriptive study, prevalence was estimated in a two-stage design in which the SRQ was selected as the first-stage screen and the Present State Examination (PSE, 9th ed.) (Winget al. 1974) as the second-stage criterion or gold standard. Both instruments have been used extensively in Africa (Parry, 1992), and both have been translated into Afrikaans.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Psychology

Year dc:date.issued

1994

Author dc:creator

• Rumble, Sharon

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Swartz, Leslie; Parry, Charles

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13500

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/13500