Chicago, December 2: A new report has revealed that personality disorders and narcotic dependence are common among young American adults.
The National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, conducted by United States researchers, was released Monday in Archives of General Psychiatry.
For this survey, face to face interviews of 5,092 young adults, ages 19-25, taken in 2001-02 were considered. During the interview, students and the young adults not in college were asked about many disorders. It was found that 45 percent of college students and 47 percent of young adults not in college had one psychiatric disorder. But only few young people i.e. about 25 percent seek treatment. 8 percent adults had Phobia and 7 percent had depression in both the groups.
Alcohol use and personality disorders were found to be common among both college students and young people not in college, though their percentage is somewhat different. 17.7 percent college students and 21.6 percent adults not in college were suffering from personality disorders.
It was also found that bipolar disorder and drug use disorders were more common in young adults not in college than in college students. Risk of alcohol use disorders was greater among college students than the young adults not in college. These mental disorders are associated with obsessive or compulsive personality disorders and anti-social behavioral disorders which give birth to violent activities.
Dr. Carlos Blanco, of the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University, New York, and colleagues write, "In view of the high prevalence and low rate of treatment of alcohol-use disorders in college students, greater efforts to implement screening and intervention programs on college and university campuses are warranted; The centralized delivery of campus student health services might offer an advantageous structure for carrying out such screening and interventions."
Study co-author Dr. Mark Olfson said that the lack of treatment is particularly worrying. He added that this should alert not only, ''students and parents, but also deans and people who run college mental health services about the need to extend access to treatment.”
The grant for this study was given by National Institutes of Health, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the New York Psychiatric Institute.
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