Rural/urban differences in the prevalence
of mental disorders have often been reported in the last thirty years. In
general, anxiety, depressive and substance use disorders are reported to be
more common among urban than rural samples.
A recent study
carried out in Italy by Dr Antonio Preti in collaboration with Dr Carmelo
Masala and Donatella R. Petretto of the Department of Psychology, University of
Cagliari, Italy, found that rural/urban differences also hold for eating
disorders.
In this study,
involving two large samples of adolescents aged 15 to 19, those scoring higher
than the cut-off on some validated screening questionnaires used to detect the
presence of eating disorder symptoms were more prevalent in the urban sample
than in the rural sample.
Socioeconomic
status and age did not influence the differences in the reporting of eating
disorder symptoms by place of residence.
The
investigation of rural/urban differences in the prevalence of mental disorders
could offer important clues on their aetiology, particularly when
socio-cultural aspects are likely to affect how the subjects and their family
address their needs for health care services.
Reference:
Preti A, Pinna
C, Nocco S, Pilia S, Mulliri E, Micheli V, Casta MC, Petretto DR, Masala C.
Rural/urban
differences in the distribution of eating disorder symptoms among adolescents
from community samples.
Australian
& New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 2007, 41: 525-535.
Contacts:
Dr Antonio
Preti
SchizophreniaProject
e-mail: apreti@tin.it