Mental health supplement to the Ontario Health Survey: methodology.

OBJECTIVE

To describe the methodology of a province-wide, cross-sectional, epidemiologic study of psychiatric disorder among those aged 15 years and over living in household dwellings in Ontario.

METHOD

Respondents for the survey were drawn from households (N = 13002) participating in a province-wide health survey. One person per household was selected, and 9953 (76.5%) participated.

RESULTS

Participants and nonparticipants were similar to each other. An extensive array of data, including measures of psychiatric disorder classified using a revised version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), are available for all respondents.

CONCLUSIONS

The Ontario Health Supplement is contained in a public-use data file at the Ontario Ministry of Health and is available to investigators for study. A strong survey design, careful measurement, and acceptable levels of response provide the rationale for our inviting researchers to access and use the Ontario Health Supplement data base.