Depression in the community: prevalence and treatment

Abstract

Research Diagnostic Criteria were used to make psychiatric diagnoses in a study of the prevalence of depression and its treatment in Alameda County, California, in 1978. As in findings from a study in New Haven, Conn, the number of people with clinical depression (as well as those with other psychiatric disorders) who sought help from a mental health professional or from any other source was quite low (only one in five had seen a mental health professional). Men in particular were less likely to report having received treatment for their emotional problems. However, contrary to the New Haven study, in Alameda County those with depression diagnosed were not more likely than those with other psychiatric diagnoses to seek care for emotional problems from nonpsychiatric physicians or from other sources of care.