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15/03/2012 - General information

Mental health in Europe: results of the European EU-WMH project

37,289 adults from 10 European countries participated in the project

Source: Stock.xchng

The European project EU contributions to the World Mental Health Survey Initiative (EU-WMH, 2009-2011) coordinated by Jordi Alonso, the director of IMIM’s Programme for Epidemiology and Public Health, started with the goal of estimating the frequency, distribution and consequences of mental disorders in Europe, while increasing awareness and strengthening existing public initiatives on mental health in the fields of research and politics.

At a first stage, 3 of the 8 research groups participating in this project performed comprehensive scientific literature reviews and, subsequently, analyzed in depth data in health surveys carried out among 37,289 adult respondents from 10 European countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Romania and Spain). The areas studied are the burden of mental disorders and their distribution, the gender perspective on mental health and the inequalities in mental health in Europe.

In this sense, and with the purpose of producing and disseminating new and updated information on the status of mental health in Europe, we hereby disclose the final results of the project presenting them in three summarized reports:

The burden of mental Disorders in the European Union had the goal to estimate the prevalence of mental disorders in 10 European countries examining the impact of mental disorders in terms of a loss of productivity in the workplace; three indicators have been used particularly: absenteeism and presenteeism at the workplace, and reduced earnings. By clicking here you may access a brief summary of the report.
Mental health in Europe: a gender perspective had the goal to investigate the gender-based differences as for the prevalence of common mental disorders, the use of mental health services in Europe and the use of psychotropic drugs. Researchers examined whether or not the gender variation was linked to socio-economic and family factors and / or with the geophysical location. Besides using the data from the EU-WMH survey, they also analyzed the data gathered in the Eurobarometer 64.4 survey, containing information on individuals from 31 countries. By clicking here you may access a brief summary of the report.
Social inequalities in mental health and in unmet need for mental health care in Europe provides data on the association of social inequalities with mental health disorders and with unmet needs for mental health care. The goal was to identify the social groups who more frequently suffer from common mental disorders and from unmet needs for mental health care. By clicking here you may access a brief summary of the report.

For further information: http://www.eu-wmh.org/

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