From the Editor

Canadians understand more about mental health and – with declining stigma – are more interested in services. So are they using more services and how have practice patterns changed with time?

In this week’s Reading, we consider a new paper from The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Chiu et al. try to answer these questions by looking at outpatient family doctor and psychiatrist visits from 2006 to 2014. They also look at ED visits and hospitalizations.

8b16181v-565x422Family docs and mental health: how much care do they deliver (and are all their patients this cute)?

They find that ED visits were up for mental health, as were hospitalizations, but physicians visits went down (all in terms of rates). They write: “The increasing acute care service use coupled with the reduction in outpatient visits suggest, overall, an increase in demand for mental health care that is not being met in ambulatory care settings.”

Also in this week’s Reading, we consider some good news: CAMH received a $100 million gift from an anonymous donor. Good news – but is it all good news for mental health charities?

DG

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