China Mental Health Survey is the first nationwide representative cross-sectional epidemiological study on mental disorders in China. The survey subjects were community residents aged 18 years and over. Using complex sampling methods with stratified multistage unequal probabilities, 32552 respondents were selected from 1256 village committees or neighborhood committees among 157 disease surveillance points in 31 provinces, municipalities or autonomous regions of China. Mental disorders were diagnosed and classified according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders- Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), and the grades of six domains of functional impairment were assessed by World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0). The prevalence of disability of any mental disorder among mood disorder, anxiety disorder, substance-use disorder, intermittent explosive disorder and eating disorder was 2.84% and the disability rate among patients was 31.95%. In Chinese community, the prevalence of mental disability and disability rate among patients comorbid physical diseases among the five types of mental disorders are the highest, while the severity of disability caused by five types of mental disorders are mild. The risk factors of mental disability and disability are mainly mental disorders, followed by physical diseases, and the protective factors are socio-demographic factors; among mental disorders, depression plays the first role in the severity of disability. It should be paid attention to disease burden of mental disability in China.

Yueqin Huang got her Bachelor of Medicine, Master of Epidemiology, and PhD of Psychiatry and Mental Health from Peking University. She is a psychiatric epidemiologist and the director of the Division of Social Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine in Institute of Mental Health of Peking University. She is the vice-president of China Association of Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons, and the Executive member of Rehabilitation International and the chair of Commission of Health and Function. She is principal investigator of a series of research projects and international collaborations. She has published 390 papers in academic journals and is editor-in-Chief of 11 books.