[Epidemiological study of psychiatric disorders under a social security system (Institute of Social Security and...

The present study, fourth in the national literature about general psychiatric epidemiology, refers the experience of a social security system through the study of a sample obtained in a year of work of an important neurologic and psychiatric clinic of this system, studying relevant characteristics of 1 054 subjects in a total 7 102 acute and chronic psychiatric patients, showing a prevalence of 180 per 100 000 habitants. We found 36 different psychiatric disorders, most of them psychoneurotic in ambulatory patients and psychotic forms in hospitalized. The last ones made the 0.022% of the total sample. The biggest frecuency is made by young adults with moderate predominance of females than males. The sample is formed near the 10% by patients of 26 states of Mexican Republic. The period of major frecuency are the months of vacations of government workers, most of them of Public Education Secretary (Secretaría de Educación Pública). We comment some epidemiological articles of Mexican medical literature concerning psychiatric disorders and some socioeconomic and cultural characteristics of mental pathology in our country.