DSM–III Major Depressive Disorder in the Community

Abstract

The fit of the structure of DSM–III major depressive disorder to data from two large epidemiological surveys is assessed by latent class analysis. The surveys were conducted at the Baltimore and Raleigh–Durham sites of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Epidemiologic Catchment Area Program. Three classes are required to fit the data, and the third class bears a strong resemblance to major depressive disorder, although it requires slightly more symptoms to be present than DSM–III. The derived structure replicates successfully for Baltimore and Raleigh-Durham, with a prevalence of the major depression category of 0.9% for both sites.