Search

Objective: The authors present prevalence data for adolescents in a large metropolitan area and examine the association of DSM-IV diagnoses with functional impairment and selected demographic correlates among European Americans (EA), African Americans (AA), and Mexican (MA) Americans.Method: The authors sampled 4,175 youths ages 11 to 17 years whose households were enrolled in large health maintenance organizations. Data were collected using questionnaires, the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-IV and the Children's Global Assessment Scale. The data were collected in the Houston Metropolitan area in 1998-2000. Data on psychiatric disorders were derived from interviews with youths only.Results: AA had a lower prevalence of mood disorders, substance use disorders, and any disorders adjusted for Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-IV impairment or Children's Global Assessment Scale score than did others. EA had greatest prevalence of substance use disorders, whereas AA were lowest. After adjusting for covariates, EA had a higher risk for some disorders than AA. Effects of gender, age, parent education, family income, and marital status were not consistent across groups. Family income was protective only for EA.Conclusions: There appear to be few systematic differences between majority and minority adolescents at risk for psychiatric disorders. MA are not at increased risk contrasted to EA. AA had lower risk for some disorders, but adjusting for impairment and covariates eliminated most differences. Thus, multivariate analyses support the hypothesis that initial ethnic differences appear to be a function of factors associated with disadvantaged minority status rather than to distinctive ethnic culture. A noteworthy finding was that disadvantaged social status did not appear to increase the risk for disorders among minority youths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines problem recognition across ethnic groups by focusing on parental reports of mental health problems in adolescents. Data were collected from 1 youth (aged 11-17) and 1 caregiver from a community-based sample of households in the Houston metropolitan area. The sample was 4175 youths and their caregivers (37.8% European, 35.00% African, 25.4% Latino, and 1.8% other American). Indicators of mental health were perceived mental health, life dissatisfaction, and whether adolescents had a mental health problem in the past year. European Americans were more likely to rate the mental health of adolescents as fair or poor, were about twice as likely to report that adolescents were dissatisfied with their lives, and that adolescents had a mental health problem in the past year. Interventions to help minority families in the identification of youth's mental health problems may need to address cultural differences in the definition of mental health problems or in the benefit of labeling mental health problems that may serve as barriers to help-seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper extends our knowledge of comorbidity of substance use disorders (SUDs) and other psychiatric disorders by examining comorbidity of specific types of SUDs and risk of comorbidity separately for abuse and dependence. The research question is whether there is specificity of risk for comorbidity for different SUDs and whether greater comorbidity is associated with dependence. Data are presented from a probability sample of 4175 youths aged 11–17 assessed with the NIMH DISC-IV and self-administered questionnaires. SUDs outcomes are alcohol, marijuana and other substances in past year. Mean number of other comorbid disorders ranged from 1.9 for marijuana abuse to 2.2 for other substance abuse and 1.9 for marijuana dependence to 2.8 for other substance dependence. None of the abuse SUDs does not increase risk of anxiety disorders, but dependence does. Both abuse and dependence increased risk of comorbid mood disorders. Similar results were observed for disruptive disorders. Patterns of comorbidity varied by substance, by abuse versus dependence, and by category of other psychiatric disorders. In general, there was greater association of comorbidity with other disorders for dependence versus abuse. Marijuana is somewhat less associated with other disorders than alcohol or other substances. The strongest association is for comorbid disruptive disorders, regardless of SUDs category. Having SUDs and comorbid other psychiatric disorders was associated with substantial functional impairment. Females with SUDs tended to have higher rates of comorbid disorders, as did older youths. There were no differences observed among ethnic groups. When comorbidity of SUDs with other disorders was examined, controlling for other non-SUDs disorders for each specific disorder examined, the greater odds for dependence versus abuse essentially disappeared for all disorders except disruptive disorders, suggesting larger number of comorbid non-SUDs in part account for the observed effects for dependence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]