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Psychological and Physical Co-Morbidity among Urban South African Women
OBJECTIVES: There is substantial evidence for the links between poverty and both physical and mental health; but limited research on the relationship of physical and mental health problems exists in low- and middle-income countries. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the prevalence and co-mo...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3808278/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24205319 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078803 |
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author | Mendenhall, Emily Richter, Linda M. Stein, Alan Norris, Shane A. |
author_facet | Mendenhall, Emily Richter, Linda M. Stein, Alan Norris, Shane A. |
author_sort | Mendenhall, Emily |
collection | PubMed |
description | OBJECTIVES: There is substantial evidence for the links between poverty and both physical and mental health; but limited research on the relationship of physical and mental health problems exists in low- and middle-income countries. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the prevalence and co-morbidity of psychological distress among women with common physical diseases in a socio-economically disadvantaged urban area of South Africa. METHODS: Women enrolled in the Birth to twenty (Bt20) cohort study were evaluated for this paper. Bt20 was founded in 1990 and has followed more than 3,000 children and their caregivers since birth; this study evaluates the health of the caregivers (average age 44) of these children. Psychological distress was evaluated by administering the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) and we evaluated the presence of physical disease by self-report. RESULTS: Forty percent of the sample presented with psychological distress using the GHQ scoring method. More than half of the women who reported a history of a physical disease, including diabetes, heart attack, asthma, arthritis, osteoporosis, epilepsy, and tuberculosis, reported psychological disorder. Presence of one physical disease was not associated with increased rates of psychological distress. However, women who reported two diseases had increased rates of psychological symptoms, and this upward trend continued with each additional physical disease reported (measured to five). CONCLUSIONS: These data indicate high prevalence rates of co-morbid psychological distress among women with physical disease. This argues for the need of greater mental health support for women living with physical diseases. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3808278 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-38082782013-11-07 Psychological and Physical Co-Morbidity among Urban South African Women Mendenhall, Emily Richter, Linda M. Stein, Alan Norris, Shane A. PLoS One Research Article OBJECTIVES: There is substantial evidence for the links between poverty and both physical and mental health; but limited research on the relationship of physical and mental health problems exists in low- and middle-income countries. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the prevalence and co-morbidity of psychological distress among women with common physical diseases in a socio-economically disadvantaged urban area of South Africa. METHODS: Women enrolled in the Birth to twenty (Bt20) cohort study were evaluated for this paper. Bt20 was founded in 1990 and has followed more than 3,000 children and their caregivers since birth; this study evaluates the health of the caregivers (average age 44) of these children. Psychological distress was evaluated by administering the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) and we evaluated the presence of physical disease by self-report. RESULTS: Forty percent of the sample presented with psychological distress using the GHQ scoring method. More than half of the women who reported a history of a physical disease, including diabetes, heart attack, asthma, arthritis, osteoporosis, epilepsy, and tuberculosis, reported psychological disorder. Presence of one physical disease was not associated with increased rates of psychological distress. However, women who reported two diseases had increased rates of psychological symptoms, and this upward trend continued with each additional physical disease reported (measured to five). CONCLUSIONS: These data indicate high prevalence rates of co-morbid psychological distress among women with physical disease. This argues for the need of greater mental health support for women living with physical diseases. Public Library of Science 2013-10-25 /pmc/articles/PMC3808278/ /pubmed/24205319 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078803 Text en © 2013 Mendenhall et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Mendenhall, Emily Richter, Linda M. Stein, Alan Norris, Shane A. Psychological and Physical Co-Morbidity among Urban South African Women |
title | Psychological and Physical Co-Morbidity among Urban South African Women |
title_full | Psychological and Physical Co-Morbidity among Urban South African Women |
title_fullStr | Psychological and Physical Co-Morbidity among Urban South African Women |
title_full_unstemmed | Psychological and Physical Co-Morbidity among Urban South African Women |
title_short | Psychological and Physical Co-Morbidity among Urban South African Women |
title_sort | psychological and physical co-morbidity among urban south african women |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3808278/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24205319 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078803 |
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