Psychosis risk city people fall ill more often

Psychosis risk: city people are more likely to suffer from mental illness.

(08.09.2010) British researchers from the Institute of Psychological Medicine and Neurology at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom have found in a study of more than 200,000 people that people living in cities are at higher risk of mental illness than villagers. The cause: lack of social cohesion in the cities.

Mental illnesses can manifest themselves in many different forms, such as As depressive moods, altered perception of reality or loss of reality, express and triggered by a variety of causes. The fact that such mental disorders occur more frequently in city dwellers has long been suspected by the experts and has been investigated in various studies. The results to date have been substantiated in the present study and the researchers also offered a new explanation for the causes. Those who grow up in rural areas are far less likely to suffer from mental illness, as the researchers from the Institute of Psychological Medicine and Neurology at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom say .

Study leader Stanley Zammit justifies this in the journal „Archives of General Psychiatry“ with that it „in cities (...) more often than in rural areas neighborhoods where many people move in and out and in which many single parents live with their children " „The researchers assume that the residents of such neighborhoods on average have less stable social networks and that this could play a role in the development of psychotic disorders. "Zammit further explained the results of the study. Any hospitalization and non-affective psychosis of subjects revealed, according to the researchers, that „the decay of social structures (...) was the most important neighborhood-related factor explaining the increased psychosis risk of people growing up in cities. "The term" non-affective psychoses "is understood to mean schizophrenia-related disorders On the other hand, psychoses and affective psychoses are, for example, severe depressions or mania, with no urban-rural difference being found for depression in previous studies.

Although older studies came to similar conclusions as the study of the School of Medicine at Cardiff University, but rather justified by the higher population density, the noise, overstimulation or excessive urban violence. In the current analysis of the anonymous data of 203,829 Swedes, however, a different connection between non-affective psychoses and social fragmentation at the place of residence emerged. Thus, urbanity is associated with a higher risk of psychosis, especially as the collapse of social communities within cities progresses. Researchers also believe that not only integration, but also the "localized sense of security, cohesion and sense of community" are key to the risk of non-affective psychosis. The social environment plays a much greater role in the results of the study than the individual predispositions of the people.

However, experts are still debating whether the results of the British researchers are so clearly valid or not simple „Norbert Kathmann, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Humboldt University in Berlin, explained to people who are already in danger of moving to cities more often than others „Mirror online“. This would not be the social environment in the city responsible for the disease, but given psychosis would be reason for moving to the city. In addition, according to Kathmann there is a risk of statistical distortion because „Clinics in the city and on the countryside may differ in their admission policies. „It is“ according to the expert „it is conceivable that psychiatric hospitals only treat people with severe psychosis in the countryside, whereas those in the city already have patients with mild symptoms. "Therefore, the results so far are insufficient to clearly identify causes of increased schizophrenia prevalence in cities It could be that city people rather seek a doctor or a psychiatric clinic because of the feeling of loneliness - if only because of the need for contact. (fp)

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Image: Barbara Eckholdt, Pixelio.de.