Mental health statistics, 1982-83 to 1993-94

The shift toward greater use of general hospitals for the treatment of mental disorders reflects the tendency to admit patients with the most serious diagnoses to psychiatric hospitals. However, admissions to both types of institution now tend to involve more serious cases than in early 1980s. To some extent, the increase in the number of patient-days provided for mental disorders, despite declining separation rates, is attributable to the time required for the treatment of disorders such as schizophrenia and affective psychoses. There is also growing emphasis on community care. Increasingly, mental disorders are treated on an outpatient basis without admission to hospital. The substantial annual fluctuations in the national number of separations-as many as 5,000 or 6,000 from one year to the next-may be due to the development of alternative facilities such as community health clinics. The opening of such a facility in one province could have noticeable impact on national figures on hospitalization for mental disorders.