Epidemiology of psychosomatic disorders in Iran

Psychiatric-epidemiological surveys executed from 1963 to 1976 in Iran with the help of the WHO sampled all three principal components (rural, urban, tribal) of the population greater than or equal to 6 years. The surveys employed questionnaires and tests in a first screening phase and individual psychiatric examinations of all suspects in a second. They were based partly on census studies, partly on random samples. Prevalencies per 1,000 for all psychiatric cases were: rural 149, urban 166, tribal 21; for all psychoreactive cases (included in the foregoing) rural 87, urban 98, tribal 12; for all psychosomatic cases (included in the psychoreactive) rural 17, urban 23, tribal 9. All tribal rates were significantly lower. Reactive cases thus accounted for 59% of the total psychiatric morbidity, psychosomatic cases for 14% of it. Significant sex differences were found only in the poorer strata. The distribution of types of psychosomatic disorder differed from what Cremerius has reported for Munich, with more psychosomatic headache and less pulmonary/cardiovascular and gastrointestinal disturbance.