Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The overall aim of the Ethnic Minority Psychiatric Illness Rates in the Community (EMPIRIC) survey was to estimate the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity, as measured by standard screening instruments, among minority ethnic populations resident in England, and to compare prevalence rates between groups. Also, the survey aimed to examine use of related services and to examine key factors that may be associated with mental disorder, and ethnic differences in the risk of its contraction. The sample for the survey was drawn from Black Caribbean, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Irish respondents to the Health Survey for England (HSE) of 1999 (held at the UK Data Archive under SN 4365), which had focused on minority ethnic groups. White adults selected from respondents to the HSE of 1998 (held under SN 4150) were also included in the sample. In addition to the quantitative survey, which included 4281 respondents, the EMPIRIC study also included a qualitative element. Interviews were achieved with 117 informants, purposively selected from quantitative survey respondents from within each ethnic group, according to CIS-R score. The intention was to investigate the cross-cultural validity of the standard screening instruments, which were designed and validated in a Western context. By encouraging informants to use their own words, the qualitative study explored the terms and definitions that they used to describe mental health. Users should note that only the data from the quantitative survey are currently held at the Archive.

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For the most part, the questions were taken from existing instruments, as outlined below: Use of health services and the Short Explanatory Model Interview (Lloyd et al, 1998). Explanatory models (EMs) denote the 'notions about an episode of sickness and its treatment that are employed by all those engaged in the clinical process'. They contribute to the research of respondents' own perspectives of illness and elicit local cultural perspectives of the sickness episode; Close persons questionnaire - to measure social support - taken from Whitehall II Study of British Civil Servants; Social networks - questions derived from the Alameda County Study; Questions on carers - taken from the General Household Survey (see GN 33090); Control at home and work - taken from Whitehall II Study of British Civil Servants; Chronic strains - questions on problems with relatives, with financial problems over providing necessities and payment of bills, housing problems, and difficulties in the local neighbourhood - taken from the Whitehall II Study of British Civil Servants; Discrimination/harassment - taken from the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities (see SN 3685); Short Form 12 (SF12) Physical and Mental Health Summary Scales; Clinical Interview Schedule - Revised (CIS-R); Psychosis Screening Questionnaire (PSQ) - used to assess psychotic symptoms; Social Functioning questionnaire (SFQ); Language and ethnic identity - adapted from the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities (see SN 3685). Full references for each of these sources are listed in the study documentation.

Multi-stage stratified random sample

please see documentation for full details of sampling. Details of original ethnic minority sampling

Face-to-face interview

Psychological measurements