The publication presents data extracted from the Mental Health Information National Collection, and covers the year ended 30 June 2008.
This publication will be available in hard copy and online, with the Appendix Tables published online only as links to excel files, for users’ convenience.
Key findings include:
- District Health Boards saw 100,575 mental health clients in 2007/08
- Of clients seen in 2007/08, 20.6 percent identified themselves as Māori, 4.9 percent as Pacific peoples and 3.0 percent as Asian – slightly higher than the corresponding percentages in 2006/07
- the most commonly used teams were community teams (54,504 clients) in 2007/08
- general practitioners were the most common source of referrals in 2007/08 (21,243 clients)
- clients of Asian ethnicity (22.5 days) and Pacific ethnicity (21.2 days) had longer average length of stays in inpatient facilities than Māori clients (16.3 days) and clients of other ethnicity (15.6 days).
Key Results
Clients seen in 2007/08
- District Health Boards (DHBs) saw 100,575 mental health clients, an increase of 4.0 percent since 2006/07.
- Over half of all clients seen were male (52.3 percent).
- Of clients seen, 20.6 percent identified themselves as Māori, 4.9 percent as Pacific peoples and 3.0 percent as Asian.
- Māori comprised the greatest proportion of clients seen in terms of age-standardised rates among both males (3913.4 per 100,000 Māori population) and females (2850.7 per 100,000 Māori population).
Services provided in 2007/08
- The most commonly used team types in mental health service provision were community teams, which saw 54,504 clients.
- General practitioners were the most common source of referrals to mental health services (referring 21,243 clients). The second most common source of referrals w self- or relative referrals (accounting for 12,029 referrals). Together, referrals by general practitioners and by patients themselves or relatives made up just under half of all referrals to DHB mental health services.
- Clients of Asian and Pacific ethnicity stayed longer on average in inpatient facilities (22.5 days and 21.2 days respectively) than Māori clients (16.3 days) and clients of other ethnicity (15.6 days).
- The most common service provided by alcohol and drug teams was individual treatment attendance (19,053 clients seen).
- Among children and youth, age-specific rates of mental health service use for both Māori and non-Māori peaked at ages 15 and 16 years.
- Over 80 percent of all clients seen by forensic teams were male.