The Epidemiology of Psychiatric Illness in Industrialised Society

Abstract

There is no convincing evidence that the amount of formal psychiatric illness is any greater in industrialised than in non-industrialised societies, although the amount of social deviance probably is greater. It is seriously questioned whether modern industrialised society is any more stressful than any other type of society either current or in any earlier era. However, lack of comparable data between different societies and between different time periods presents major methodological problems in fully assessing these issues.