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Special Article
Introduction
The regional variation in the prevalence of common mental disorders has been suggested, with North and South East Asian countries having lower prevalence estimates than countries in other regions (Steel et al. 2014). The recent burden of disease reviews for anxiety and mood disorders also identified comparatively low prevalence rates in the North and South East Asia region (Baxter et al. 2013; Ferrari et al. 2013). Unmet need for treatment has been reported generally both in developing and developed countries (Wang et al. 2007), and substantial proportion of patients with severe disorders have not received any care (Wang et al. 2007).
In Japan, a community-based survey conducted in early 1990s reported generally lower lifetime prevalence for most Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (third edition revised; DSMIII-R) mood and anxiety disorders (Kitamura et al. 1999) than in developed Western countries. Another community-based survey in an urban population in late 1990s, using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) (Kessler et al. 1994), found lower prevalence of anxiety, mood and alcohol use disorders in Japan than in Western countries (Kawakami et al. 2004). The former study also reported a very low treatment rate in Japan, with only 10% of those with mental disorders seeking medical treatment (Kitamura et al. 1999).
The World Health Organization (WHO) established the World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Consortium in 2000 to study unmet need for treatment of mental disorders across developed and developing countries (Kessler et al. 2006). A coordinated series of WMH surveys has subsequently been conducted in 28 countries around the world, including Japan. The WMH Japan Survey was conducted from 2002 to 2006. The preliminarily report of the WMH Japan Survey conducted in 2002-2003 showed lower 12-month prevalence of mental disorders in Japan compared with most Western countries (Kawakami et al. 2005). The treatment rate in Japan based on this report was lower than that in the WMH surveys in most developed countries in Europe and the USA but slightly higher than in China, Columbia or Lebanon (Demyttenaere et al. 2004; Kawakami et al. 2005). However, this initial report was based on a small WMH...