DOI: 10.3886/icpsr38953
title: Mental and Substance Use Disorders Prevalence Study (MDPS), United States, 2020-2022
title: Archival Version

description: The Mental and Substance Use Disorders Prevalence Study (MDPS) is a pilot program designed to estimate the prevalence of specific mental and substance use disorders among U.S. adults 18-65 years of age. The MDPS is also designed to estimate the percentage of individuals with these specific mental and substance use disorders who receive treatment. The study is funded by SAMHSA.
To estimate the prevalence of specific mental and substance use disorders, the MDPS design addresses two gaps in prior general population survey efforts: (1) the
exclusion of institutionalized populations at high risk for disorders, and (2)
the reliance on nonclinical or screening scales to estimate mental and
substance use disorders. The specific disorders of interest measured in the MDPS
are past 12-month and lifetime schizophrenia spectrum disorders (defined as
including schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or schizophreniform), past
12-month bipolar I disorder, major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized
anxiety disorder (GAD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive-compulsive
disorder, anorexia nervosa, and past 12-month alcohol, opioid, cannabis,
stimulant, and sedative/hypnotic/anxiolytic use disorders. The MDPS sample
included individuals residing in the residential household population and in three
non-household populations: state/federal prisons, state psychiatric hospitals, and
homeless shelters. The MDPS also utilizes the Structured Clinical Interview for
DSM-5 (SCID-5; First et al., 2015), delivered by trained mental health
clinicians, which is the gold standard for mental and substance use disorder
diagnostic assessment. The MDPS was a cooperative agreement between RTI
International and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
description: Mental and substance use disorders are significant public health concerns that affect the lives of millions of Americans. The Mental and Substance Use Disorders Prevalence Study (MDPS) was designed to provide national statistics as to the prevalence of mental and substance use disorders among U.S. adults aged 18-65 years. The design of MDPS addresses two gaps in prior general population survey efforts: (1) the exclusion of institutionalized populations at high risk for disorders, and (2) the reliance on nonclinical or screening scales to estimate mental and substance use disorders.
description: The MDPS involved four population samples: adults aged 18-65 years in households, state/federal prisons, state psychiatric hospitals, and homeless shelters. The last three samples were targeted because of existing data that indicates prevalence of mental and substance use disorders is higher in non-households.
MDPS employed a three-stage design. The first stage was a roster to establish eligibility. The second stage was a mental health screening questionnaire to select participants with higher likelihood of one or more disorders. The third stage was a clinical interview that included the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (SCID-5). The SCID-5 was used to determine the presence of each mental and substance use disorder of interest to MDPS.
description: The household sample was drawn via a multistage, clustered, and stratified area sampling scheme to form a nationally representative sample of adults. In the first stage, primary sampling units (PSUs) are defined as counties or groups of counties for those with small populations. One hundred PSUs were randomly selected based on size measure defined by population estimates of adults aged 18-64 from the 2018 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year data, with probabilities proportional to the size measure (PPS) after stratifying by nine Census divisions.
In the second stage, 16 secondary sampling units (SSUs), defined by census block groups, were selected with PPS within each PSU. In the third stage, address-based sampling (ABS) was used to randomly select residential addresses within the sampled SSUs from the sampling frame that is based on the U.S. Postal Service Computerized Delivery Sequence File (American Association for Public Opinion Research [AAPOR], 2016a).
Each sampled household received a letter detailing the study with the option to complete the roster via web, telephone, or mail. After the households were rostered, up to two individuals between the ages of 18 and 65 were randomly chosen for subsequent screening interviews. Finally, individuals who completed the screening interviews were randomly selected for the clinical interviews via stratified sampling based on their screening responses.
Overall, 234,270 households were initially selected, of which 25,752 were rostered (with a weighted response rate of around 20%) and 41,868 individuals from those rostered households were selected for the screening interview. Among them, 29,084 completed the screening interview and 12,906 of those who completed the screening interview were selected for the clinical interview. Eventually, 4,764 individuals residing in residential households completed the clinical interview.
Among the non-household populations, 50 prisons were randomly selected from a national list of prisons provided by the Bureau of Justice Statistics using a probability sampling scheme, and 22 agreed to participate. In addition, the study recruited and surveyed four state psychiatric hospitals and 23 homeless shelters as convenience samples. In each facility (prison, hospital, or shelter), a roster of their current individuals was obtained and a random sample of those aged 18 to 65 was selected to complete the clinical interview. Overall, the study completed clinical interviews for 321 prison inmates, 171 patients in the state psychiatric hospitals, and 423 homeless shelter residents, resulting in 5,679 clinical interviews in MDPS after combining with the household sample.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: MDPS Screener Restricted-Use Data
DS2: MDPS Clinical Interview Restricted-Use Data
description: U.S adults aged 18-65.
U.S adults residing in state/federal prisons.
U.S adults residing in state psychiatric hospitals.
U.S adults residing in homeless shelters.. Smallest Geographic Unit: Census region
description: face-to-face interview; mail questionnaire; telephone interview; web-based surveyFor additional information on the Mental and Substance Use Disorders Prevalence Study,
please visit the MDPS website.Some documentation may reflect a previous list of principal investigators. For a full list of investigators, please see this study homepage.