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

Rumble, Sharon

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

Master Thesis

1994

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Psychology

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

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.

Description

Bibliography: leaves 150-167.

Keywords

Psychology

Reference:

Collections

Masters

Full item page