mental disorders

Question 1

how do we classify mental disorders

Answer 1

• Mental disorders are diagnosed using the
• – Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – 5th Edition (DSM-5) or
• – International Classification of Diseases, 10th/11th Edition (ICD-10,ICD-11) @ 2022 Loughborough University 20
• The DSM-5 defines mental disorder as: “A syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or development processes underlying mental functioning”

Question 2

what is the prevalence of mental disorders

Answer 2

• World Health Organization’s World Mental Health Survey Initiative (Kessler et al., 2007)
  – Anxiety disorders, mood disorders, impulse control disorders, substance use disorders; 17 countries
  – Typical onset and prevalence of each individual disorder vary greatly
  – Lifetime prevalence of having one or more of the disorders ranged from 47.4% in the United States to 12.0% in Nigeria
  – 20-30% of people are likely to develop a mental disorder

Question 3

explain the categorical model of diagnosis

Answer 3

• Both in the DSM and the ICD, a set of diagnostic criteria is used to determine the presence or absence of specific behaviours/ characteristics that are considered key for a specific disorder, e.g., – symptoms, symptom severity – onset – stability – impact on functioning
• All or nothing principle (an individual either has or does not have a disorder)

Question 4

what causes mental disorders

Answer 4

• aetiology models vary for each disorder
• the diathesis-stress model posits that mental disorders result from an interaction between inherent vulnerability and environmental stressors
  – the greater an individual’s vulnerability to a mental disorder, the smaller the amount of stress needed to trigger the development of the disorder
  – can help to explain why some individuals develop a disorder while others do not
  – e.g., effects of Covid on mental health and wellbeing (e.g., Hossain et al., 2022)

Question 5

risk factors to mental disorders

Answer 5

GENETIC- positive family history of mental disorders

BIOLOGICAL= poor nutrition/ exposure to drugs/ brain trauma/ poor physical health/ epigenetic changes in serotonin/ hormonal changes

FAMILY RELATED= perinatal depression/ parental neglect/ child maltreatment/ parental mental illness

SOCIETY= bullying/ lack of proper stimulation/ social adversity; SES disadvantages, stressful urban environments, immigration, social isolation