pathways to psychiatric care in iran

in order to identity the pathways to pschiatric care in iran, the rates of visits to general practioners, health care centres, traditional healeers, and use of herbal medicine and referral source of 923 psychiatric patients (494 females and 429 males) visiting private offices, inpatient psychiatric centres and outpatients psychiatric clinics were examined as part of the overall evaluation of the national mental health programme through the use of a 15-item questionnaire. this study was carried out in collaboration with and the techinical and financial assitance of the eastern mediterranean office of the world health organization. the subjects were selected through straatified random sampling. the mean age of the sample was 31/3 53% were female, 47% were male, 54% were married and 41% were single. analysis of data using the epi-6 statistical package revealed that 35/1% of the subjects had been ill from one to five years at the time of the study. about half of the subjects were referred to the ental health centres by their family, relaties, or friends. 85/9% of the patients had initially sought help by visiting general practitioners and 14/1% had initially visited traditional helaers. however, 33/5% had seen traditional healers in addition to physicians and psychiatrists during the course of their illness. demographic variables such as age, sex, merital status were unrelated to the type of services the patients had sought. the results indicated that although the traditional healers continue to attract patients, a high percentage of individuals seek help from general practioners in the health centres.