A third of Europeans have mental health disorder, study shows

In any one year more than a third of Europeans have a mental health disorder, but most cases go untreated, finds a major new study.

The study, which covered 30 countries—those of the European Union and Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway—is said to be the first to depict “comprehensively” the size and burden of mental disorders across the European Union (European Neuropsychopharmacology 2011;21,655-79, doi:10.1016/j.euroneuro.2011.07.018).

The study, which included previously published research, reanalyses of existing data, national surveys, and expert opinion, covered 27 diagnoses of mental health disorder made between the late 1980s and 2010 according to criteria of the ICD-10 (international classification of diseases, 10th revision) and the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth revision).

The …