Methods: The 12-month prevalence of specific psychopathological syndromes among 1772 adults from the general population was estimated by a structured interview.

Additionally, participants underwent spirometry and were asked about obstructive lung disease in the year prior to the study.

Logistic and linear regression models were used to relate obstructive lung disease and spirometrically defined airway obstruction to mental health problems.

Results: Mental health problems were found in 35.7% of the participants. After adjusted for sociodemographic, clinical and life-style factors, asthma and chronic bronchitis were associated with almost all domains of mental health problems. In contrast, independent of its definition, spirometric airflow limitation was only related to generalized anxiety (odds ratios ranging from 2.3 to 2.7).

A reduced ratio of forced expiratory volume in one second to forced vital capacity was associated with mental health problems in general and panic and general anxiety in particular.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest an association of objective measure of airflow limitation to generalized anxiety and panic.

While the causal relationship between obstructive lung disease, airflow limitation and anxiety remains to be determined, clinicians should pay diagnostic attention to the significant overlap of these conditions.

Abstract

This article describes the history of the diagnostic class of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) up to DSM-5.

We further analyze how the development of genetics will transform the classification and diagnosis of NDDs. In DSM-5, NDDs include intellectual disability (ID), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Physicians in German-, French- and English-speaking countries (eg, Weikard, Georget, Esquirol, Down, Asperger, and Kanner) contributed to the phenomenological definitions of these disorders throughout the 18th and 20th centuries.

These diagnostic categories show considerable comorbidity and phenotypic overlap. NDDs are one of the chapters of psychiatric nosology most likely to benefit from the approach advocated by the National Institute of Mental Health’s Research Domain Criteria project.

Genetic research supports the hypothesis that ID, ASD, ADHD, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder lie on a neurodevelopmental continuum.

The identification of recurrently observed copy number variants and disruptive gene variants in ASD (eg, CDH8, 16p11.2, SCN2A) led to the adoption of the genotype-first approach to characterize individuals at the etiological level.