Some thoughts about the epidemiology and etiology of mental disorders /part 2/

Risk factors are those conditions that increase the likelihood of the onset and development of a mental illness. The risk value of a particular factor is revealed by the degree of statistical significance of its association with a particular disorder. Risk factors can be of a different kind - unfavorable life events, physiologically and mentally busy periods of life, unfavorable heredity.

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Analytical epidemiological research is also important for the prognosis of diseases / duration of psychopathological episodes, risk of relapse /. This type of research serves to reveal those additional conditions that can improve or worsen the course of the disease and its therapy; - experimental - epidemiological studies of experimental type aim by observing in the natural environment or by experiential changes in certain factors to trace their impact on flow patterns and frequency of disorders. All three methodological approaches are primarily important for the overall planning of health care for mentally ill.

The planning and implementation of an epidemiological study goes through two stages: - screening / probable carriers of mental illness from the general sample of subjects, usually by filling in a questionnaire; - additional research with the full set of research tools that are appropriately selected for screening only positive individuals, those who have a certain number of positive responses to the screening. The tools of an epidemiological study are selected tests, questionnaires, standardized and semi-standardized interviews.For consideration of the other part of the topic, it is good to clarify the essence of the concepts described below. Every mental disorder has its own clinical picture, which consists of a number of disease events. The psychic symptom is the smallest building block of mental illness. It is a "sign" not of a distinct disease, but of a malfunction. The symptom can not be divided into smaller constituents, but is nevertheless a complex entity.

For its construction, it is sometimes necessary to disrupt a wide range of mental spheres or even the whole mental activity. Its complex mechanisms of emergence, manifestation, flow, transformation and ending are inherent. Functional and organic, primary and secondary, local and general, subjective and objective, somatic, neurological and mental, etc. are distinguished. symptoms. Psychiatry also poses positive symptoms that are a sign of weakening, amplifying or excitement of certain mental functions, such as hallucinations and delusions.