© 2004 American Public Health Association
Bonnie Duran, DrPH, Margaret Sanders, PhD, Betty Skipper, PhD, Howard Waitzkin, MD, PhD, and Lorraine Halinka Malcoe, PhD, are with the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM. Susan Paine, MPH, and Joel Yager, MD, are with the Department of Psychiatry, University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Bonnie Duran, DrPH, Associate Professor, MPH Program, MSCO9 5060, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001 (e-mail: bonduran{at}unm.edu).
Objectives. We examined the lifetime and the past-year prevalence and correlates of common mental disorders among American Indian and Alaska Native women who presented for primary care. Methods. We screened 489 consecutively presenting female primary care patients aged 18 through 45 years with the General Health Questionnaire, 12-item version. A subsample (n = 234) completed the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. We examined associations between psychiatric disorders and sociodemographic variables, boarding school attendance, and psychopathology in the family of origin. Results. The study participants had high rates of alcohol use disorders, anxiety disorders, and anxiety/depression comorbidity compared with other samples of nonAmerican Indian/Alaska Native women in primary care settings. Conclusions. There is a need for culturally appropriate mental health treatments and preventive services.
Limited information exists about the prevalence of mental illness among American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) women. The 2 major US prevalence studiesthe Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study1 and the National Comorbidity Survey2did not report data on AIANs. Extrapolation of prevalence rates from other populations is problematic, because AIAN women are subject to unique factors that may affect their susceptibility to mental illness. Although the support of their traditional culture may protect AIAN women from common mental disorders,35 it is plausible that AIAN women may be at higher risk for mental illness because of adverse factors faced by their ethnic group.612
Available evidence suggests that mental illness, mental dysfunction, or self-destructive behavior affects approximately 21% of the total AIAN population, costing an estimated $1.07 billion and causing incalculable human suffering.13 The overall mental health picture for AIANs is not fully documented,5,1416 because many previous studies have been restricted by small sample sizes, limited funding, racial misclassification, focus on single mental disorders, and incompatible instrumentation. No prior studies have examined the prevalence of common mental disorders among predominately urban-dwelling AIAN women who use Indian Health Service (IHS) primary care facilities. Information on mental disorder prevalence and health service utilization among AIAN primary care populations is scarce. Wilson et al. investigated depressive syndromes in an AIAN primary care clinic population (n = 106), finding that 20% of the patients scored positive for a depressive syndrome and 8.9% met International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision (ICD-9) criteria for a major depressive syndrome.17 In another study, May reported that 21.4% of primary care patients had seen a provider for a psychological problem.18 On average, these patients presented with 2.7 episodes of mental health problems over a 10-year period, and these episodes were associated with large numbers of primary care visits (3 to 8 visits per episode). Parker et al. used the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD) in a sample of IHS primary care patients; they found that 18% of the patients had a psychological disorder diagnosis and another 17% had a subthreshold diagnosis.19 In the only published study that specifically investigated the correlates of AIAN womens mental health status, Napholz found that AIAN women who adhered to rigid gender roles had significantly higher depression scores, higher role-conflict scores, lower self-esteem scores, and lower life satisfaction scores than did women who adhered to less rigid gender roles.20 The present study aimed to extend research on American Indian womens mental health by (1) using the well-validated Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) to determine mental disorder prevalence estimates, (2) investigating a wide range of mental disorders among AIAN women who presented for primary care, and (3) identifying associations among specific sociodemographic variables, cultural variables, and mental disorders.
Study Location We conducted our study at the outpatient and urgent care clinics of the IHS hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where data were collected between June and October 1999. The hospital is part of the regional IHS unit, which provides health care to 5 local tribes and the urban Albuquerque AIAN population. The Albuquerque unit records approximately 97 000 visits per year, 60% of which are at the hospital site. Women were approached in the waiting area to determine their eligibility, and they were considered eligible if they were aged 18 to 45 years and received their medical care from IHS facilities. Those who were too physically ill to tolerate a long interview were excluded. The eligible women were then taken to another room to begin the study. The 234 women who completed all aspects of the study were fluent in English and were offered an incentive of $20 per hour for participating.
Sampling Design and Measures
Participants were stratified into high (
Statistical Analysis
Associations between the demographic variables and the psychiatric diagnoses were assessed with Pearson
Response Rates Among the eligible study participants, 489 completed the GHQ; 243 (49.7%) obtained low scores, and 246 (50.3%) obtained high scores. Sixty-five percent of the 243 women with low GHQ scores (n = 158) were selected for stage II interviews, and 97% of the 246 women with high GHQ scores (n = 238) were selected for stage II interviews (8 women with high GHQ scores were not selected for stage II because the sample size was larger than we anticipated). Of the 396 women selected, 61 (15%) could not be located, 56 (14%) refused to participate in stage II, and 45 (11%) did not show up for their scheduled interviews. Full data were obtained from 234 women (59%).
The selected but not interviewed group of women (n = 162) was younger (mean age = 27.8 years) than the interviewed group (n = 234; mean age = 29.8 years; P =
Demographic Variables
Prevalence of DSM-IV Psychiatric Disorders
The past-year alcohol abuse or dependence rate was 14% (SE = 2.4), and the past-year drug abuse or dependence rate was 4.2% (SE = 1.4). Marijuana accounted for 80% of past-year drug abuse or dependence; we found no past-year dependence on cocaine, amphetamines, hallucinogens, inhalants, or PCP. The lifetime prevalence of any mood disorder was 44% (SE = 3.4), and 86% of women who reported mood disorders suffered from major depression. The rate of past-year mood disorder was 20.9% (SE = 2.7), and 81% of these women who had mood disorders in the past year suffered from major depression. Nearly one third of all lifetime cases (29%) and past-year cases (30%) of major depression among the interviewed women were recurrent (data not shown) and were moderate or severe. All but 1 of the interviewed women who met criteria for lifetime bipolar I disorder had recurrent manic episodes. No one met criteria for bipolar II disorder. Anxiety disorders were the most common mental disorders, a finding consistent with results of other epidemiological studies of mental disorders in primary care 2730, and 62.8% of the women met criteria for any lifetime anxiety disorder diagnosis. Specific phobia (30.7%; SE = 3.1) and posttraumatic stress disorder (29%; SE = 3.0) were the most common anxiety disorders, and 15% of the women met criteria for both disorders. Of the specific phobias, animal type was the most common, followed by natural environment, blood-injection-injury, and situational types. To minimize the effects of cultural- and tribal-specific taboos regarding blood or animals on the endorsement of specific phobia symptomatology, research interviewers inquired about fears or symptoms beyond "those ordinarily experienced by people in your community." More than 30% of the sample met criteria for more than 1 type of lifetime anxiety disorder.
Conversion disorder was the most common somatoform disorder, with both lifetime and past-year prevalence of 2.5% (SE = 1.1). Lifetime hypochondriasis prevalence was 1.6% (SE = 0.8), followed by pain disorder (1.3%; SE = 0.7) and somatization disorder (0.3%; SE = 0.3). The aggregate results and comorbidity patterns are presented in Table 1 The interviewed sample experienced substantial anxiety/depression comorbidity, a finding that also is consistent with findings of other studies of mental disorders in primary care.2730 Among the women who reported any lifetime diagnosis of depression, 82% also had a lifetime anxiety disorder, and 54% of the women who reported any lifetime diagnosis of anxiety disorder also experienced depression. Of the women with any past-year depression, 75% had a concurrent anxiety disorder, and 28% of the women with a past-year anxiety disorder also experienced depression. There was high comorbidity between substance-related disorders and mood and anxiety disorders. Among the women with any lifetime substance-related disorder, 74% had a lifetime anxiety disorder and 57% had a lifetime mood disorder. Of those women with any past-year substance disorder, 72% reported a past-year anxiety disorder and 39% reported a past-year mood disorder.
Associations Between Mental Disorders and Demographic Variables Any past-year mental disorder diagnosis was associated with low educational level (PR = 1.3; 95% CI = 1.004, 1.6) and poor self-rated health (PR = 1.4; 95% CI = 1.1, 1.7). Past-year anxiety disorders were associated with high debt (PR = 1.7; 95% CI = 1.2, 2.5). Boarding school attendance was not independently associated with any lifetime or past-year diagnosis of a disorder. Other variables of interestemployment status, household size, number of children, and level of AIAN cultural identificationalso were not associated with any lifetime or past-year mental disorders. Demographic and other variables that were found to be associated with mental disorder outcomes were analyzed in a series of multivariate models. The prevalence ratios did not change substantially in the multivariate analyses, although the precision of the estimates for some outcomes was reduced because of small cell sizes.
Limitations The first limitation of this study is that the CIDI, which is widely used for psychiatric studies, may be less accurate than the structured diagnostic interviews that were conducted by culturally competent, licensed mental health professionals. This observation may be particularly true with regard to the applicability of the DSM-IV alcohol abuse and dependence criteria to the unique (high quantity, sporadic, binge frequency) drinking style of many AIAN groups.31 Second, data were collected at a single site, which limits the general applicability of these findings to other AIAN populations. Third, the study was limited to women aged 18 to 45 years; therefore, our findings cannot be safely generalized to younger or older AIAN women. Fourth, the 2-year lower mean age of nonparticipants may have inflated the prevalence of anxiety disorders, given that older age (> 35 years) was associated with these diagnoses. With these caveats, our findings on the prevalence and the correlates of common mental disorders among AIAN women in a primary care setting strongly suggest that AIAN women suffer from higher rates of certain mental disorders compared with non-AIAN women in similar settings.
Comparison With Other Studies
The mood, alcohol-related, and somatoform disorder rates in our study are most similar to those reported in the Parker et al. AIAN primary care study (Table 2
Our past-year anxiety disorder rate (46.9%; SE = 3.4) is 10 times higher than the combined WHO anxiety disorder finding (4.7%) and is double the rates found in the Parker et al. study19 and the highest individual-center rate for any WHO site (Chile, 24.4%). The lifetime rate (29%; SE = 3) of posttraumatic stress disorder in our sample was nearly 3 times the lifetime rate (10.1%) reported for women in the NCS, and our past-year rate (12.6%; SE = 2.1) of the disorder was more than 2 times the past-year rate (5.4%) found in the NCS. Our past-year somatoform disorder rates (4.2%; SE = 1.3) are considerably lower than the rates found in the WHOChile sample (23.3%) and the PRIME-MD study (18%), but they are similar to the overall WHO rates and the rates found in the WHOSeattle site (4.2%).
Context of High Prevalence Rates More than two thirds of the participants with lifetime and past-year substance abuse disorders also experienced at least 1 cooccurring anxiety disorder. Multiple plausible and conflicting theories exist regarding alcohol, other drugs, and anxiety: (1) anxiety is posited as both a cause and a consequence of heavy drinking,37,38 (2) child abuse and other traumas put women at risk for both disorders,37 and (3) anxiety disorders contribute to both the maintenance of and the relapse into pathological alcohol and drug use.38 Regardless of the temporal relationship of these diagnoses, timely treatment of either disorder may be a secondary prevention for the other. In addition to higher rates of substance use disorders, AIAN women appear to suffer from much higher rates of anxiety disorders and also from high rates of combined anxiety disorder and depression. Depression and anxiety disorders may be both an outcome of and risk factor for the low socioeconomic condition of AIAN women.39,40 The amount of disability caused by depression has been found to be as great as or greater than the disability caused by common medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, and gastrointestinal problems.41 In addition, the amount of disability caused by a combination of depression and anxiety disorder is greater than the disability caused by either condition alone.42,43 Our investigation suggests that measures of socioeconomic deprivation, such as low education level and high debt, are associated with current mental disorders in AIAN women. Measures of self-rated health at the less than good health levels also are associated with mental disorders and may reflect the impact of poor physical health and/or other social problems. We found that boarding school attendance was not related to either lifetime or past-year mental illness. Although this lack of association may be the result of improvements in boarding school management during the past 3 decades, it also is possible that the attendance measure we used had limitations. In particular, the measure of attendance alone may not capture the trauma associated with aspects of boarding school exposure. More research is needed to determine the health effects of boarding school exposure on AIAN populations.
Treatment/Prevention Implications and Future Research Mental disorder prevention and treatment for AIAN women must take into account comorbid conditions, specifically anxiety disorders with both substance abuse and major depression. Successful alcohol abuse prevention may depend upon and increase the need for other mental disorder treatments.46 In addition, longitudinal research is needed to understand the nature of co-occurring conditions. A recent Native American womens "stress and coping model"47 hypothesizes important individual- and community-level variables that may both heighten vulnerability to and protect against mental illness. This model, which is an important guide for future research, draws attention to both external and internalized attitudes and behaviorsracism, sexism, religious intolerance, and homophobiaand the other forms of colonial stratification that continue to affect AIAN families from within and without.
This research was made possible by grants 1R24MH58404, K01MH02018, and R25MH60288 from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). We would like to acknowledge the contributions of several individuals and tribes without whom this work would not have been possible. Special thanks to each woman who agreed to be interviewed for this study; to Florence Chavez and all the members of the Indian Health Service (IHS) Albuquerque Service Unit (ASU) Tribal Health Board and Tribal Administrations, Cheri Lyon, Charles North, and other IHS ASU administrators and employees for their support, feedback, and use of facilities; to Leslie Randall, Roger Gollub, William Freeman, Ervin Lewis, and other National IHS institutional review board members for their support and feedback; and to Julie Lucero, Jolene Aguilar, and the other study interviewers for their data collection efforts. Special thanks also are owed to Spero Manson, Phillip May, Jan Beals, and Claudia Honeywell for the help with instruments, feedback, and support. Note. Opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NIMH.
Human Participant Protection
Contributors B. Duran designed and coordinated both the research and the writing of the article. H. Waitzkin and J. Yager contributed to the study design and to the writing of the article. M. Sanders, B. Skipper, S. Paine, and L. H. Malcoe scored the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, conducted the statistical analysis, and contributed to the writing of the article.
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