JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Multicenter Study
Common mental disorders and disability across cultures. Results from the WHO Collaborative Study on Psychological Problems in General Health Care.
To examine the impact of common mental illness on functional disability and the cross-cultural consistency of this relationship while controlling for physical illness. A secondary objective was to determine the level of disability associated with specific psychiatric disorders. ⋯ The consistent relationship of psychopathology and disability indicates the compelling personal and socioeconomic impact of common mental illnesses across cultures. This suggests the importance of impairments of higher-order human capacities (eg, emotion, motivation, and cognition) as determinants of functional disability.