Salma Mawfek Khaled

1 THE WORLD MENTAL HEALTH QATAR (WMHQ) STUDY To date, the only available data on psychiatric morbidity in Qatar comes from primary care settings with a paucity of nationally representative epidemiological data on prevalence, predictors, and treatment contact of mental disorders in the general population. Better information is necessary for the purposes of service planning, implementation, and evaluation of policy as well as community-based interventions.

1 INTRODUCTION Mental disorders are recognized as a public health concern globally (Rehm & Shield, 2019; Vigo et al., 2016), affecting millions of individuals worldwide (World Health Organization, 2022). A meta-analysis concluded that 30% of the general population suffer from a mental disorder at least once in their lifetime (Steel et al., 2014).