Metrics details. Our aim is to ascertain extent of receipt of these services, and identify basic distinguishing characteristics of users. Analysis used descriptive statistics and logistic regression. Overall, 9. CMD was not associated with use of psychotherapy. Neither education nor income was associated with use. Use was equitable with respect to education and income.
Peer Review reports. Findings from multiple epidemiological surveys on the presence and treatment of common mental disorders CMD in adults, carried out in both developed and developing countries, typically report a notable prevalence of these conditions, but a serious level of under-treatment [ 1 — 8 ].
Various types of treatment for CMD have been developed, but those most commonly reviewed tend to be psychotherapy of which there is an extensive variety , psychotropic medication, or combined use. Multiple studies in developed countries have examined and compared the efficacies of these alternative but overlapping types of treatment [ 8 — 13 ]. There has been interest in identifying where care was received e. With the advent of national health systems, there is also considerable interest in determining equitable use regardless of education or income [ 3 — 7 , 14 — 16 ].
Few studies, however, have tried to determine the readily observable ways in which users of psychotherapy, and psychotropic medication, differ from each other. That is the focus of the present study. Since previous studies have shown underuse of psychiatric services by persons with CMD and other psychiatric disorders [ 5 , 6 , 20 ], we anticipated that a larger proportion of this sample would meet criteria for CMD than would report use of psychotherapy or psychotropic medication.
Further, given an increasing emphasis on treatment by psychotropic medication, we expected greater use of medication than of psychotherapy, together with a greater likelihood that medication users would meet criteria for CMD, since psychotropic medications are designed to alleviate mental health conditions. Details of the multi-stage sampling procedure have been reported previously [ 21 ]. Within each district, census tracts were randomly selected.
