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A recent study of 5.9 million people provided the largest and most comprehensive study on comorbidity – the development of two or more mental disorders – to date.
The risk of developing a second mental health disorder after an initial diagnosis is increased, according to new research led by Professor John McGrath of the Queensland Brain Institute of the UQ and Aarhus University.
Professor McGrath and his colleagues examined the Danish health data for a record 5.9 million individuals, providing the largest and most comprehensive study on comorbidity – the most common of all patients. occurrence of two or more mental health disorders.
This long period has allowed researchers to track a person's mental health for long periods of time and has surprisedly discovered that the risk of a second mental health diagnosis remains high even fifteen years after the initial diagnosis.
"In the first six months after the initial diagnosis, the risk of a second diagnosis of mental health is very high: so, for example, people diagnosed with mood disorders such as depression have a very high risk of being diagnosed with a neurotic disorder such as anxiety six months after diagnosis, "said Professor McGrath.
"After the first year, this risk decreases considerably, but it then stabilizes and remains two or three times higher than those without previous disorder, even fifteen years after the initial diagnosis."
"The result was ubiquitous – we found it in all the trouble pairs we studied."
The results also suggest that for some pairs of disorders, it did not matter which one came first – the risk of developing other disorders was increased. For example, an initial diagnosis of depression might just as well be followed by a second diagnosis of anxiety, and vice versa.
It is important to note that people under 20 at the beginning of their first mental disorder were significantly more at risk of developing a second disorder in the next 10 to 15 years, and this vulnerability was found for most couples. trouble.
"We found that in youth, mental disorders were more" pluripotent, "which meant that an observed change or disruption of mental health was more flexible in the direction in which it manifested itself as a disorder. , said Professor McGrath.
The study is not only the largest and most comprehensive in its field, but its innovative presentation of the results set a new standard in epidemiology (the study of health and safety data). diseases, "said Professor McGrath.
"The document is freely available, with all the available data and a free code to download, and the results presented in an interactive website with educational videos," he said.
"It's much more user-friendly than the traditional method of presenting the results only in an academic document."
"We have provided a detailed and detailed atlas of the different ways in which mental disorders are grouped and publicly available, and we hope this will contribute to better practices, better clinical care and future research."
The next step for Professor McGrath and his colleagues is to extend the study to identify the risks between mental disorders and the subsequent appearance of general medical conditions, such as lymphatic disorder. epilepsy, migraine, heart attacks and diabetes.
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