Mental Health and Addiction: Service use 2011/12

Published online: 
19 December 2014

Summary

These tables are the latest release of routine mental health and addiction data.

Errata

These tables were updated on 3 March 2020. Seclusion data has been removed from these tables. An error was discovered in the way seclusion events were calculated. This error led to an undercount of seclusion events. We are in the process of publishing revised seclusion data that will be available in a stand alone dataset. For more information please contact: [email protected].

The information is broken down by age (including youth), sex, ethnicity, DHB of domicile and deprivation. Key findings are as follows:

Demographics

In 2011/12, 147,972 clients were seen by mental health and addiction services. Of these, 80,259 (54.2%) were male, and 67,713 (45.8%) were female.

Of the ethnic groups reported here, Māori were the most likely to be seen by mental health and addiction services, with 5533.6 clients seen for every 100,000 Māori population, while Asians were the least likely to be seen with 977.6 clients seen for every 100,000 Asian population.

There were 125,864 clients seen by DHBs and 46,282 clients seen by NGOs.  Some of these clients were seen by both DHBs and NGOs.

Of the 147,972 clients seen in 2011/12, the majority (132,862 or 89.8%) were seen face-to-face.  The remaining 10.2% received services that involved care co-ordination contacts, contact with family/whanau, written correspondence, telephone calls and text messages.

The rate of Māori seen by DHBs has risen in recent years from 2806.5 per 100,000 Māori population in 2001/02 to 4338.0 in 2011/12 (a rise of 54.6%), while the rate of non-Māori seen has risen more slowly from 2114.6 per 100,000 non-Māori population in 2001/02 to 2660.8 in 2011/12 (a rise of 25.8%).

Clients seen by organisation

The most common type of team providing services to DHB clients was community teams, who provided services to 64.0% of clients seen by DHBs, while the next most common team type was alcohol and drug teams who provided services to 19.3% of DHB clients.  For NGOs, this pattern was similar; the most common team type was community teams, who provided services to 42.0% of clients seen by NGOs. Alcohol and drug teams were the next most common team type, providing services to 37.2% of NGO clients.

Activity type

The most common type of activity (or service) provided by DHBs in 2011/12 was ‘mental health individual treatment attendances: family not present’.  This activity type accounted for 40.7% of all DHB services provided.  In contrast, the most common type of activity provided by NGOs in 2011/2 was ‘community support contacts’, which accounted for 27.0% of all NGO services provided.

Team details

For DHBs, the greatest number of bednights was provided by inpatient teams (70.1% of all DHB bednights), while for NGOs the greatest number of bednights was provided by residential teams (77.1% of all NGO bednights).

The most common type of activity provided by community teams in 2011/12 was ‘mental health individual treatment attendances: family not present’ which accounted for 35.3% of all services provided by community teams. 3,137,411 services were provided by community teams in 2011/12, but 3.9% of these were not attended by clients.

The most common type of activity provided by inpatient teams in 2011/12 was ‘mental health acute inpatient occupied bed nights’ which accounted for 51.1% of all activities provided by inpatient teams. 346,336 services were provided by inpatient teams in 2011/12, but 0.1% of these were not attended by clients.

The most common type of activity provided by alcohol and drug teams in 2011/12 was ‘mental health individual treatment attendances – family not present’ which accounted for 29.5% of all activities provided by alcohol and drug teams.  817,976 services were provided by alcohol and drug teams in 2011/12, but 5.4% of these were not attended by clients.

The most common type of activity provided by child and youth teams in 2011/12 was ‘care/liaison co-ordination contacts' which accounted for 26.1% of all child and youth activities. 579,559 services were provided by child and youth teams in 2011/12, but 4.9% of these were not attended by clients.

The most common type of activity provided by forensic teams was ‘medium secure inpatient occupied bed nights' which accounted for 30.3% of all forensic activities. 161,772 services were provided by forensic teams in 2011/12, but 0.3% of these were not attended by clients.

The most common type of activity provided by kaupapa Māori teams was ‘mental health individual treatment attendances – family not present’ which accounted for 19.6% of all kaupapa Māori activities.  473,158 services were provided by kaupapa Māori teams, but 3.9% of these were not attended by clients.

Activity setting

The two most common settings in which activities took place were ‘onsite’ and ‘telephone’.  Together they accounted for 57.6% of all activities in 2011/12.

Referrals

Referrals to mental health and addiction teams were most likely to come from ‘self or relative referral’ (19.0%), or a ‘general practitioner’ (15.0%).

Discharges from mental health and addiction teams were most likely to be to ‘no further referral’ (46.9%), or to a ‘general practitioner’ (16.7%).

Deprivation

People living in the most deprived areas were 2.8 times more likely to be seen by mental health and addiction services than people living in the least deprived areas (5817.6 per 100,000 population compared to 2114.7 per 100,000 population).

Regular service users

In 2011/12, 80 clients were regular inpatient service users, 864 were regular residential service users, and 19,969 were regular community service users.  This means they had at least one bed night every three months for two years or longer, with at least one of these bednights occurring in 2011/12.

Electroconvulsive therapy

In 2011/12, 236 clients received a total of 2536 electroconvulsive therapy treatments, equating to an average of 10.7 treatments per client.  Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a therapeutic procedure in which a brief pulse of electricity is delivered to a patient’s brain in order to produce a seizure.  For more information about ECT see the ‘Glossary’ worksheet.

Outcomes

The percentage of clients seen for whom an outcome collection was completed on their behalf, has improved over time.  Between September 2008 and June 2012, this has improved from 58.8% to 78.7% in the inpatient setting, and from 35.9% to 54.3% in the community setting.  For more information about outcome collections, see the ‘Glossary’ worksheet.

The distribution of mean total HoNOS scores shows the expected pattern:

  • Clients had a higher mean score when they were admitted to an inpatient service compared to a community service.
  • Clients showed a reduction in the mean score between admission and discharge in both settings.
  • Clients discharged from a community to an inpatient setting (i.e. ‘Discharge – other treatment setting’) still showed a relatively high mean score.

The distribution of clinically significant HoNOS items also showed this same expected pattern.

The index of severity shows that, as expected, clients admitted to an inpatient unit were quite unwell (61.1% had severe symptoms).  Also, as expected, fewer clients had severe symptoms when they were discharged with no further care (12.7% had severe symptoms).

As expected, clients are generally less ill when they are admitted to a community-based team with 37.0% having severe symptoms.  Again, as expected, fewer clients had severe symptoms when they were discharged with no further care (9.0% having severe symptoms).

Publishing information

  • Date of publication:
    19 December 2014
  • Citation:
    Ministry of Health. 2014. Mental Health and Addiction: Service use 2011/12. Wellington: Ministry of Health.
  • Ordering information:
    Only soft copy available to download
  • Copyright status:

    Owned by the Ministry of Health and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

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