Sociological Concerns
There is a negative consequence to the conduction of studies that are not valid and reliable. The medicalization of symptoms and character traits can have a damaging effect on those that display these symptoms and traits. For example, a person being surveyed for major depressive disorder in the ECA project would be asked questions such as "In your lifetime, have you ever had two weeks or more during which you felt sad, blue, depressed, or when you lost all interest and pleasure in things that you usually cared about?" Although many people would answer yes to this question, it is not necessarily because they were experiencing depression. Rather, they could be experiencing a natural reaction to some kind of life stress. Some speculate that by labeling this reaction as a mental illness, it increases the stigma of the person's symptoms and may create problems for their recovery. However, alternatively, by accurately assessing the high prevalence of mental disorders, stigma for having or ever having had such a disorder may decline.
Studies like the ECA may not accurately distinguish between psychiatric disorders and typical, non-pathological human stress responses.
Read more about this topic: Psychiatric Epidemiology
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