Prevalence of psychiatric disorders in an onset cohort of adults with type 1 diabetes

Background Previous studies indicate a high prevalence of psychiatric disorders in adults with type 1 diabetes mellitus. The aim of our study was to determine if newly diagnosed adults with type I diabetes already have an elevated rate of psychiatric disorders at the beginning of their physical illness. Methods The authors consecutively recruited 313 newly diagnosed, adult inpatients with type I diabetes (age 17-40 years) from 12 hospitals. A national, representative population sample of 2046 persons of a similar age range served as the reference group. Psychiatric disorders were measured in both groups using structured interviews that provided diagnoses according to DSM-IV. Results There was a point prevalence of 12.5% for psychiatric disorders in the sample. The most frequent conditions were anxiety and affective disorders. Subjects with type 1 diabetes demonstrated a rate of major depressive episodes twice that of the reference group (5.8% vs 2.7%, p < 0.003; corrected for confounders). Apart from this finding, there was no significantly increased prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the diabetes sample as compared to the general German population. Conclusion The rate of major depressive episodes in the new onset cohort of type 1 diabetes patients was double that of the population as a whole. However, the hypothesis, that newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes patients have more psychiatric disorders than the general population, was not confirmed. Copyright (C) 2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.