The National Comorbidity Survey of the United States

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the background, design, and preliminary results of the National Comorbidity Survey (NCS) the first psychiatric epidemiologic survey to administer a broadbased research diagnostic interview to a nationally representative sample of the United States. The survey shows that lifetime and recent psychiatric morbidity are a good deal more prevalent than previously thought to be the case, with 48% of the population having at least one psychiatric disorder at some time in their life and 29% in the past year. Despite this widespread prevalence, serious psychiatric disorders are concentrated in a smaller sector of the population made up largely of the roughly one-sixth of the population who have a history of several different psychiatric disorders. This kind of high Comorbidity is associated with significant role impairment and disorder chronicity. Despite the fact that psychiatric disorders are common and disabling, the survey shows that only a minority of people ever obtain professional treatment for these disorders. We begin by discussing the background of the study and then turn to a description of the design and preliminary findings. The paper closes by discussing implications of these results and future directions in analysis of the NCS data.