The influence of the process of urbanization on the prevalence of neurosis. A community survey

Abstract

An analysis is made of the influence of urbanization in a rural community of the North of Spain on the prevalence of neurosis. The methodology followed was based on a two-phase cross-sectional analysis of a representative sample of the population above the age of 15 years. We found tht while the "urban" area was associated with a high prevalence of neurosis (male = 8.5 %, female = 21.4%), in the "rural", and especially the "isolated" areas the prevalence was very low ("rural"; male = 4.5%, female = 14.5%; "isolated"; male = 3.6%, female = 12%). This high neurotic morbidity in the urban area was found to be significantly associated with the group of people characterized as young, single, with a low social and educational level, and with a non-skilled manual profession. Our results also show that the place of residence does not significantly influence the prevalence of the different types of neurosis.