I need to know information about the number of annual visits to
psychiatrist's offices in the U.S.  In particular, I need the
following info:
1.) How many people visit psychiatrists in a given year?
2.) How many of those are "first" visits (i.e., "new" patients)?
3.) How many of those "first" visits result in some sort of positive
diagnosis (or, failing that, what is the "incidence" of mental illness
in the U.S. (as opposed to "prevalence"))?

I know some of these can be interpreted in any number of ways;
feel free to read it however you want, but please provide an
explanation of how you arrived at the number, and of course the
references.

Any detailed breakdown of conditions by category, etc. is appreciated
but not required.

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Request for Question Clarification by bobbie7-ga on 05 Jul 2004 17:09 PDT

Hello Marcom!

I can provide you with the following data for the United States with references:

- Number of office visits to psychiatrists (2001)
- Number of visits to office-based physicians for mental disorders (2001)
- Percentage of visits to psychiatrist?s offices with six or more
previous visits (2001)
- Percentage of psychiatry visits that were self referrals (2001)
- Number of hospital emergency department visits for mental disorders. (2002)
- Percentage of adults and children that visit mental health professionals. (2001)
- Percentage and number of Americans that made outpatient mental
health visits to non-hospital settings. (1987)
- Incidence (annual) of Mental illness


Would this information be of your interest?

Thanks,
Bobbie7

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Clarification of Question by marcom-ga on 05 Jul 2004 23:08 PDT

Bobbie,

Yes - all of that would definitely be useful.  All of that, with
citations, would be a satisfactory answer to the question.

(-: Marco :-)

Hello Marco!

Below you will find the all the data that I mentioned in my
clarification with the relevant citations.


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- Number of office visits to psychiatrists (2001)

Number of office visits to psychiatrists = 27,058,000

The distribution of office visits according to physician specialty is
presented in table 1 (page 16) of the National Ambulatory Medical Care
Survey: 2001
Number 337 August 11, 2003

Download the complete survey here:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad337.pdf


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- Number of visits to office-based physicians for mental disorders (2001)

44.8 million

?Number of visits to office-based physicians for mental disorders:
44.8 million (2001)
Source:  National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey:  2001 Summary?

National Center for Health Statistics
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/mental.htm

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- Percentage of visits to psychiatrist?s offices with six or more
previous visits (2001)

46.1 percent

 ?Visits to psychiatrists and obstetricians and/or gynecologists had
the highest percent of visits with six or more previous visits (46.1
and 32.2 percent, respectively).?

National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2001 
Number 337 August 11, 2003

Download the complete survey here:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad337.pdf


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- Percentage of psychiatry visits that were self referrals (2001)

Psychiatry - 58.5 percent

?Self-referral occurred most frequently for visits to the specialties
of obstetrics and gynecology (54.0 percent), ophthalmology (56.3
percent), dermatology (49.4 percent), and psychiatry (58.5 percent).?

National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2001 
Number 337 August 11, 2003
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad337.pdf

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- Number of hospital emergency department visits for mental disorders. (2002)

Number of hospital emergency department visits for mental disorders:
2.0 million (2002)
Source: National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey:  2002 Emergency 
Department Summary

National Center for Health Statistics
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/mental.htm


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- Incidence (annual) of Mental illness

?Incidence (annual) of Mental illness: about 22.1 percent of American
adults annually or 44.3 million people (NIMH)
Incidence Rate: approx 1 in 4 or 22.10% or 60.1 million people in USA?
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/m/mental_illness/prevalence.htm

Older Americans

?Out of 35 million older Americans, two million are estimated to have
a diagnosable depressive illness, and another five million exhibit
significant symptoms of depression (NIMH). ?

11.4% of older adults over 55 have an anxiety disorder (NIMH). ?
http://www.aoa.gov/press/oam/May_2004/media/vignettes/Mental%20Health.pdf
http://www.owl-national.org/mentalhealthweek/statistics.html


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- Percentage of adults and children that visit mental health professionals. (2001)

Adults 15 %
Children   21%

?Each year more than 15 percent of adults and 21 percent of children
visit mental health professionals. In the U.S. today there are more
than 40,000 psychiatrists, 65,000 family therapists, 125,000
psychologists, 10,000 psychoanalysts and 150,000 social workers.
Twenty-five million Americans now take Prozac. In the past 10 years,
sales of antidepressants have reached $11 billion. ?
Salon Media Group, Inc
http://dir.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/05/30/syndromes/index.html


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- Percentage and number of Americans that made outpatient mental
health visits to non-hospital settings. (1987)

?Drawing on data from the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey,
Olfson and Pincus found that an estimated 4.1 percent of
noninstitutionalized Americans_or 9 million individuals_made 84
million outpatient mental health visits to nonhospital settings.

Patient Distribution 
Patients were distributed in roughly equal numbers between
psychiatrists (27 percent), psychologists (30.8 percent), general
medical physicians (35.3 percent), and other health professionals
(24.8 percent). ?

Psychiatric News
http://www.psych.org/pnews/96-10-18/study.html




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Resources:

Physician Office Visit Data
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/ahcd/officevisitcharts.htm


National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey:  2001 Summary
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad337.pdf

National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey:  2002 Emergency
Department Summary
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad340.pdf


Search criteria:
Physician Office Visit Data
Psychiatrist visits million 
National Center for Health Statistics

I hope you find this information useful!

Best regards,
Bobbie7

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Clarification of Answer by bobbie7-ga on 06 Jul 2004 05:59 PDT

How many people are affected by mental illness?

The U.S. Surgeon General's report on mental health found that about
one in five Americans experiences a mental disorder in the course of a
year. As a result, millions of adults and children are disabled by
mental illness every year.
http://www.mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/highlights/october2003/awareness/#four

"Mental illness affects more than 40 million Americans each year, says
the National Institute of Health. That?s more than 14 percent of the
U.S. population or more than 3 times the populations of Tennessee and
Virginia combined."
http://www.frontierhealth.org/lifematters/displaydoc.asp?136

Mental Disorders in America at the National Institute of Mental Health:

"Mental disorders are common in the United States and internationally.
An estimated 22.1 percent of Americans ages 18 and older?about 1 in 5
adults?suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. When
applied to the 1998 U.S. Census residential population estimate, this
figure translates to 44.3 million people."

See a breakdown of these numbers at the following link:
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/numbers.cfm

Excellent... Thank you very much.  Just what I needed.

Thank you Marco, for the five stars and tip!
--Bobbie7