A community study of minor psychiatric morbidity in Taiwan

A community study of minor psychiatric morbidity (MPM) was carried out on three population samples aged 15 and above randomly selected from rural (Yenpu), suburban (Chishan), and urban (Kaohsiung) communities (N = 350 for each) in Taiwan. A two-stage case finding strategy was applied with a newly developed and validated screening questionnaire (CHQ), and a modified Chinese version of the Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS-CV). The total response rate was 99.4% and there was no time lag between the CHQ screening and the second stage clinical interview conducted by a psychiatrist. The weighted validity of the CHQ was found to be acceptable (sensitivity 69.6%, specificity 94.8%, misclassification rate 11.4%). The overall weighted prevalence rate was 18.0% for men and 33.3% for women. Both the CIS and the CHQ data are used as the morbidity indices to investigate the sociodemographic risk factors of MPM. A higher risk of MPM, which occupied 92% of the total morbidity, was found to be associated with women aged 35 and above, the unemployed men, and the lower socioeconomic status after linear modelling.