Annual Prevalence and Incidence of Schizophrenia and Similar Psychotic Disorders in the Republic of Korea: A National Health Insurance Data-Based Study

OBJECTIVE: We conducted this study to address the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and similar psychosis in South Korea with Health Insurance Review and Assessment (HIRA) database. METHODS: We used HIRA database, which includes diagnostic information of nearly all Korean nationals to collect number of cases with diagnosis of schizophrenia and schizophrenia-similar disorders (SSP), including schizophreniform, acute/transient psychotic disorders, schizoaffective disorders, and other/unspecific nonorganic psychosis (ICD-10 codes F20/23/25/28/29) between 2010 and 2015. The annual prevalence and incidence were calculated using the population data from the Korean Statistical Office. RESULTS: The 12-month prevalence of SSP of Korea between 2010 and 2015 were 0.48–0.66%. The 12-month prevalence of schizophrenia were 0.40–0.52%; The annual incidence rates (IR) of SSP between 2010 and 2015 were 118.8–148.7 per 100,000 person-year (PY). For schizophrenia, IR per 100,000 PY were 77.6–88.5 between 2010 and 2015. CONCLUSION: The 12-month prevalence found in the present study was higher than that reported in community-based epidemiologic studies in South Korea but similar to those from other countries. The annual incidence of SSP and schizophrenia was found to steadily increase and was higher than that of other countries. The high incidence rate observed in the current study needs to be studied further.