Objective: The paper reviews psychiatric epidemiological research in Germany focusing on studies conducted over the last two decades.
Method: Relevant studies were identified using Medline and Psyndex databanks.
Results: Inspired mainly by Anglo-American research, a substantial body of studies demonstrates the constitution of psychiatric epidemiology as a research field in Germany. The paper reviews field studies in children and adolescents, in adults and the elderly concerning scope, design and methods. Also those studies regarding special populations (i. e. homeless, persons living in nursing homes) usually not covered by field studies were included. Selected results of current surveys were reported to illustrate that mental disorders are common.
Conclusions: Future challenges of psychiatric-epidemiological research include (1) the provision of internationally comparable data and (2) the description of individual and contextual risk- and protective factors of mental disorders. The latter can only be achieved by employing longitudinal designs where researcher should adopt a multi-level perspective in questioning and analysis.