3. Overview of Psychiatry Today Flashcards
Psych focuses on what types of disorders?
functional disorders of human emotion, thought, behavior
what percent of the US popn has at least 1 psych disorder?
25%
how prevalent is major depression?
17%
if you control for all other disease, patients with depression have what kinds of mortality?
more/earlier mortality than patients without depression. not related to the extent of the co-existing disease
which is worse for depression: an acute traumatic event or long-term low grade stress?
chronic low grade stress
the DSM is reliable or valid?
reliable (ie consistent) but not valid (ie not objectively true)
problems with the DSM?
almost completely subjective, heterogeneous, overlap between symptoms for different dx.
what non-psych problems can present as a psych disease?
hypothyroid, alpha-interferon, brain tumor, drugs
current problems in the field of psychiatry?
- diagnoses are subjective and complicated
- pathophys is not well understood
- tx are only moderately effective
psych disorders worldwide are what?
the most prevalent and costly medical conditions worldwide.
do we have new treatments for psych disorders that work better than what we had 50+ yrs ago?
sadly, we do not. we have new/different treatments for everything, but those treatments work about as well as treatments did 50 yrs ago.
what are the 3 main ways we treat psych disorders?
- meds
- therapy
- ECT
