Background and Objective: Mental health is a seriouse issue in health care systems in the world including Iran which has been relatively neglected. In many countries, the prevalence and incidence of mental disorders are regularly observed. The aim of the present study was to prepare a report on the incidence trend of the mental disorders in Iran based on previous studies.
Materials and Methods: In this study, the literature was examined using web search engines. The extracted articles were then compared and the prevalence of psychiatric disorders was obtained from them.
Results: So far in Iran, three national scale surveys were conducted in order to determine the prevalence of mental disorders using different tools in 1998, 2007 and 2010 which showed prevalences of 21%, 17.10% and 23.6%, respectively. But since these surveys used different diagnostic tools, there were some difficulties comparing them. So, three surveys in the city of Tehran with the same tool conducted in 1997, 2007 and 2012 are used to determine the trends in mental health prevalence which showed prevalences of 21.5%, 34.2% and 39.6%, respectively.
Conclusion: The findings suggest that the prevalence of mental disorders in Iran is increasing alarmingly.Thus, the future attempt should be focused on causes and risk factors, and appropriate measures must be taken to deal with this situation.
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