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Self-rated general health and psychiatric disorders in a general population sample.

John U, Meyer C, Rumpf HJ, Schumann A, Dilling H, Hapke U

Institute of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, University of Greifswald, Walther-Rathenau-Str. 48, 17487 Greifswald, Germany. ujohn@uni-greifswald.de

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between nicotine and alcohol dependence, depressive, anxiety and somatoform disorders with self-rated general health (GH). A cohort study of a random sample of the non-institutionalised general population aged 18-64 with a participation rate of 70.2% was carried out in a German area (n = 4075 at baseline). A follow-up of tobacco smokers or heavy drinkers (n = 1083, 79.4% of those who had given consent to be followed-up) was conducted 30 months after baseline measurement. The assessments included self-ratings of GH and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) diagnoses based on the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. The results show that nicotine dependence, anxiety disorders and somatoform disorders moderately predicted self-rated GH at follow-up (general linear model, R(2) = 0.12). We conclude that psychiatric disorders may contribute to the prediction of a low self-rated GH.

Published 6 June 2005 in Eur Psychiatry, 20(3): 223-8.
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