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ToolsFazel, Seena, Khosla, Vivek, Doll, Helen and Geddes, John (2008) The prevalence of mental disorders among the homeless in Western countries: Systematic review and meta-regression analysis. PLoS Medicine, 5 (12). ISSN 1549-1277
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Background: There are well over a million homeless people in Western Europe and North America, but reliable estimates of the prevalence of major mental disorders among this population are lacking. We undertook a systematic review of surveys of such disorders in homeless people. Methods and Findings: We searched for surveys of the prevalence of psychotic illness, major depression, alcohol and drug dependence, and personality disorder that were based on interviews of samples of unselected homeless people. We searched bibliographic indexes, scanned reference lists, and corresponded with authors. We explored potential sources of any observed heterogeneity in the estimates by meta-regression analysis, including geographical region, sample size, and diagnostic method. Twenty-nine eligible surveys provided estimates obtained from 5,684 homeless individuals from seven countries. Substantial heterogeneity was observed in prevalence estimates for mental disorders among the studies (all Cochran's χ2 significant at p < 0.001 and all I2 > 85%). The most common mental disorders were alcohol dependence, which ranged from 8.1% to 58.5%, and drug dependence, which ranged from 4.5% to 54.2%. For psychotic illness, the prevalence ranged from 2.8% to 42.3%, with similar findings for major depression. The prevalence of alcohol dependence was found to have increased over recent decades. Conclusions: Homeless people in Western countries are substantially more likely to have alcohol and drug dependence than the age-matched general population in those countries, and the prevalences of psychotic illnesses and personality disorders are higher. Models of psychiatric and social care that can best meet these mental health needs requires further investigation.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | © 2008 Fazel et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Health Services and Primary Care |
| Depositing User: | Rhiannon Harvey |
| Date Deposited: | 29 Mar 2011 15:28 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Jun 2023 12:34 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/27543 |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pmed.0050225 |
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