Indian people and community psychiatry in Saskatchewan

A discrepancy is identified between the increase in inpatient admissions and of outpatient contacts of Treaty Indians in Saskatchewan from 1967 to 1976. This is the reverse of the trend in the non-Treaty Indian population, and represents a contradictory effect to the intention of the Community Psychiatry Program of the province's government. No major diagnostic differences were at statistically significant levels, which might have accounted for the higher inpatient admission rates and the relatively lower outpatient contact rates of Treaty Indians. This is an interesting example of the use of governmental statistics and a promising one for the identification and solution of problems in health care delivery.