There were an estimated 10.8 million visits to general
practitioners for mental health-related conditions in 2000-01,
especially for depression, according to a report released today by
the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
Depression accounted for one in every three mental health
problems managed by general practitioners.
Mental Health Services in Australia 2000-01 also shows
that general practitioners managed a larger number of mental health
problems for female patients than for male patients. This applied
across all age groups with the exception of people under 15 years
of age.
The majority of patients with a mental health problem managed
were aged 35 to 54 years.
Report co-author David Braddock said that the figures
highlighted the key role played by General Practitioners in the
provision of mental health-related care.
'This has been backed up by data from the Australian Bureau of
Statistics, which show that over 29% of adults with mental
disorders had visited a GP for a mental health problem in the
previous 12 months', Mr Braddock said.
In addition to the GP visits were an estimated 2.1 million
visits to private psychiatrists in Australia in 2000-01.
Mental Health Services in Australia 2000-01 also shows
there were 275,000 mental health-related hospital stays during
2000-01. Of these, 166,000 were overnight hospital admissions (a
stay involving one or more nights), with 131,000 being admissions
to public hospitals and 35,000 to private hospitals.
Mood disorders, especially depression and bipolar affective
disorder (manic depression), accounted for 45,000 of these
overnight admissions (26.2%), with 32,000 admissions being to
public hospitals and 13,000 to private hospitals.
Apart from mood disorders, public and private hospitals tend to
have differing focuses with respect to mental health problems.
Public hospital admissions included a comparatively high proportion
of schizophrenia disorders (22.6% of public admissions) whereas
private hospital admissions included a high proportion of neurotic
and stress-related disorders (18.7% of private admissions).
For same-day admissions for mental health-related problems,
private hospitals had almost 20% growth between 1998-99 and
2000-01.
Mr Braddock said that there were also several million contacts
during the year with community mental health care facilities, but
data had not yet been finalised for these types of services.
Mental Health Services in Australia 2000-01 was funded
by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, and State and
Territory health departments, as part of the National Mental Health
Strategy.
16 April 2003
Further information: David Braddock, AIHW, tel.
02 6244 1136, or
tel. 0407 915 851
For media copies of the report: Publications
Officer, AIHW,
tel. 02 6244 1032
Availability: Check the AIHW Publications
Catalogue for details.