Prevalence of psychological disorders in the Athens area. Prediction of causal factors.

A two-phase cross-sectional study on the prevalence of psychological disorders was carried out in a sample of 1,574 adult male and female residents of two boroughs in the greater Athens area. The analysis focused on the detection of any possible effects (risk factors) that personal data (such as sociodemographic profile, use of psychiatric services, medication and experience of stressful life events) may have on mental health; information about the latter was assessed by Langner's scale. The findings are that all the independent variables investigated affect the respondents' psychological status, although interactive effects between variables predicted different patterns of psychopathological symptom formation.