Epidemiology in the Service of Adult Practice
Social and Epidemiological Psychiatry Group - University of Leicester
Epidemiology can give us insights into difficult challenges we face in our clinical practice. For example, the challenge that rates of common disorders are rising, although more people are being treated, suggests the need for prevention, as in our research on preventing depression in mothers.
Another example, we have found that autism is much more common in adulthood and old age than we thought So we also looked for autism in adults under the care of mental health services for a population of 1.2 million We found 1 in 20 psychiatric patients also has autism and most of these are unrecognised. Therefore it is important to be able to recognise autism in adulthood We would argue that it can help greatly to recognise and address autism when treating comorbidities such as depression and Borderline Personality Disorder. Patients are more likely to appreciate our recognition of the full range of their difficulties