World Mental Health Survey, Portugal, 2008-2009

The World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative was launched as an effort to bring policymaker attention to the disparity between mental health service and demand. A key assumption of WMH was based on the idea that policymakers neglect mental disorder, in part, because much evidence of this disparity was based on expert ratings of comparative illness impact rather than empirical evidence. The World Health Organization (WHO) hoped that policymakers could be motivated to address the problem of unmet treatment needs if evidence of such needs were more concrete and better publicized. The approach taken by WMH is to conduct rigorous general population surveys in nationally representative samples in many countries throughout the world, to generate reputable data from these surveys on the prevalence, severity, course, and treatment of mental disorders. Data were collected using the WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) which uses both ICD-10 and DSM-III diagnostic criteria. This survey was conducted in Portugal and utilized the Portuguese version of the CIDI.