[Epidemiologic survey of psychiatric disorders in specialized consultation]

This epidemiological survey was performed with 317 clinicians of each structure of care (hospital, private practice...), randomly selected among french psychiatrists. During one day of a week, in January or June, all outpatients completed a self-questionnaire regarding sociodemographic data, previous and actual symptoms and for some of them randomly selected, the clinicians filled in a semi-standardized evaluation form and had to give the complete diagnosis according to the DSM III-R criteria. 2686 outpatients have completed the self-questionnaire and for 1568 (51%), the diagnosis DSM III-R was given. The mean age was 41.3; most of patients were females (59.2%), married (50.5%), urban (77.2%), employees (25.2%). The most frequent main diagnoses were: mood disorders (26%), schizophrenia (19.5%) and generalized anxiety (15%); in 47% of the cases, a second diagnosis was given. There was no significant difference between the 2 periods of evaluation.

among psychiatric outpatients, the proportion of depression and anxiety disorders is nearly the same as in the total psychiatric population; in contrast, schizophrenia is more frequent, and alcohol or drug abuse less frequent.