[Psychological well being: cross-cultural study of homogeneous samples]

Psychological well-being: transcultural survey on homogeneous samples. A mental healthy survey was conducted on a multinational sample of 245 married women, aged 35-39, extracted from the general population on urban and rural communities in Switzerland, France and Algeria. All subjects were evaluated through a standardized psychiatric interview. The symptomatology found in the three samples is characterized by despondency, fatigue and anxiety. For the global multinational sample the following one-year prevalence rates were found: 13% for the depressive and/or anxiety state accompanied by mild impairment, 2% for the depressive state accompanied by a moderate or a marked impairment (total: 15% of affected individuals). The morbidity rate decreases going from the algerian to the french to the swiss samples. The analysis considering the socio-professional subsamples shows that the women farmers enjoy a better psychological health than other urban or rural groups (the difference is statistically significant).