Construction and curation of a data set of historical mental health incidence in Norway, 2025, Mamelund et al

[Andy]

Abstract​

We present a structured data set allowing opportunity for insights into mental health admissions to Norwegian facilities covering the period 1872 to 1929. This resource enables quantitative analysis of historical mental health trends across multiple decades and may provide a deeper understanding of the burden of post-viral mental health conditions, which are of renewed interest following the coronavirus disease pandemic of the early twenty-first century. Our data set includes records from 29 facilities, comprising council, private, incarceration, state, and hospital facilities.

To construct and curate our data set, we used optical character recognition using ABBYY Finereader to extract tables from historical reports. It was followed by manual validation, harmonization of facility names, and mapping of historical diagnostic terms to Bertillon’s classification of causes. In addition, sex and geography were incorporated as explanatory variables. We believe our data set offers a foundation for comparative historical studies and will contribute additional evidence to understanding long-term mental health patterns.

Open access

 

[Utsikt]

We are particularly interested in the extended morbidity following viral infections. Known examples are given in Table 1, namely myalgic encephalomyelitis and post-acute coronavirus disease 2019 syndrome. Both are examples of somatic symptom disorders. A somatic symptom disorder relates to the body/physical symptoms and has subjective evidence of disease only perceived by the patient. The symptom is opposed to signs which are objective evidence that can be observed by the medic such as bleeding.

The umbrella term for somatic symptom disorders is post-viral mental health conditions. Many have been identified throughout time, including but not limited to febricula (1750), neurasthenia (1869), post-influenza psychosis (1889), and encephalitis lethargica (1920)1.

They seem to believe that ME/CFS is a «post-viral mental health condition»..

I think it’s weird that they were allowed to include ideological statements and interpretations in what is supposed to be a purely technical document about extracting data from digitised archival files.

 

[Andy]

I think it’s weird that they were allowed to include ideological statements and interpretations in what is supposed to be a purely technical document about extracting data from digitised archival files.

Presumably both the journal editor and the peer reviewers saw nothing wrong with doing so.

 

[Peter T]

They seem to believe that ME/CFS is a «post-viral mental health condition»..

I think it’s weird that they were allowed to include ideological statements and interpretations in what is supposed to be a purely technical document about extracting data from digitised archival files.

Possibly this interpretation/ideology is so prevalent in some circles that many are not even aware it is not a simple descriptive fact.

 

[SNT Gatchaman]

Intrigued to read that they think encephalitis lethargica is a somatic symptom disorder.

A somatic symptom disorder relates to the body/physical symptoms and has subjective evidence of disease only perceived by the patient. The symptom is opposed to signs which are objective evidence that can be observed by the medic such as bleeding. The umbrella term for somatic symptom disorders is post-viral mental health conditions. Many have been identified throughout time, including but not limited to febricula (1750), neurasthenia (1869), post-influenza psychosis (1889), and encephalitis lethargica (1920).

Wikipedia —

The German neurologist Felix Stern [de], who examined hundreds of encephalitis lethargica patients during the 1920s, noted that their encephalitis lethargica typically evolved over time:

The early symptoms would be dominated by sleepiness or wakefulness.​

A second symptom would lead to an oculogyric crisis.​

The third symptom would be recovery, followed by a Parkinson-like syndrome.​

Oculogyric crisis is not exactly a purely subjective condition experienced solely by the patient!

Also I can't help but respond to "objective evidence that can be observed by the medic such as bleeding". If you recall this would simply be attributed to deliberate self harm by patients.