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Epidemiology and comorbidity of severe mental illnesses in the community: findings from a computerized mental health registry in a large Israeli health organization

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Abstract

Purpose

Maccabi Healthcare Services, a large health maintenance organization (HMO) operating in Israel, has recently constructed a computerized registry of patients with severe mental illnesses (SMI). In the present study, we aimed to use this registry to investigate the epidemiology of schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder among adults, and to assess their comorbidity and mortality compared to the general population.

Methods

In this historical cohort study, we investigated the age- and sex-specific prevalence and incidence rates of HMO members diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar affective disorder between 2003 and 2009. We compared their medical comorbidity and mortality to the general HMO population.

Results

A total of 8,848 and 5,732 patients were diagnosed with bipolar (crude prevalence rate of 5 per 1,000) and schizophrenia (3 per 1,000), respectively. The annual incidence rates were 4.2 and 2.4 per 1,000 for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, respectively. On average, schizophrenic men were diagnosed 4–5 years earlier than schizophrenic women. Compared to the general population, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder patients had a 12- and 9-year shorter life expectancy, respectively. They were also more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes mellitus (odds ratio of 1.9 and 1.6, respectively).

Conclusions

The current study demonstrates the potential use of automated medical databases to characterize the epidemiology of SMI in the community. The increased comorbidity and mortality among these patients has important implication for health authorities for prevention and delivery of health-care services.

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Abbreviations

HMO:

Health maintenance organization

MHS:

Maccabi Healthcare Services

SMI:

Severe mental Illness

OLE:

Overall life expectancy

CVD:

Cardiovascular diseases

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Conflict of interest

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Division, Maccabi Healthcare Services, 27 Ha’Mered Street, Tel Aviv, 68125, Israel

    Arad Kodesh, Inbal Goldshtein, Iris Goren, Gabriel Chodick & Varda Shalev

  2. Department of Community Mental Health, Haifa University, Haifa, Israel

    Arad Kodesh & Marc Gelkopf

  3. Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Gabriel Chodick & Varda Shalev

Authors
  1. Arad Kodesh
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  2. Inbal Goldshtein
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  3. Marc Gelkopf
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  4. Iris Goren
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  5. Gabriel Chodick
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  6. Varda Shalev
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gabriel Chodick.

Additional information

A. Kodesh and I. Goldshtein contributed equally to this work.

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Kodesh, A., Goldshtein, I., Gelkopf, M. et al. Epidemiology and comorbidity of severe mental illnesses in the community: findings from a computerized mental health registry in a large Israeli health organization. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 47, 1775–1782 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-012-0478-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-012-0478-9

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