Care-seeking as a proxy indicator of the mental health of elderly Brazilians

Abstract

Objective: To assess a large set of metadata made public by the Brazilian Ministry of Health on older subjects who visited outpatient mental health services in Brazil from 2008 to 2012. Methods: We extracted data from the Brazilian Unified Health System Information Technology Department (Departamento de Informática do Sistema Único de Saúde, DATASUS), then calculated rates of visits per population in each of the five regions of Brazil, using census data for each year. Finally, logistic regressions were performed with depressive disorders or dementias as dependent variables, controlled by age and year of visit, stratified by region. Results: Mood disorders were the leading reason for visits to outpatient mental health services by older adults, followed by delusional disorders. The calculated rates were lower than the known prevalence of depressive disorders and dementias, but the regressions revealed typical patterns. Males were less likely to present with a depressive disorder, while older subjects were more likely to present with depression and dementia. Conclusions: Publicly available data from DATASUS may not enable inferences about the prevalence of mental disorders in elders, but inferential analyses match what is known about these conditions. This approach is supplemental to other more common ones and is of special importance for policymakers and health system managers.

Use of routine health records to study mental health care of Brazilian children

“…The diagnoses which drove this rise were Hypomania (1.42/100,000), Bipolar affective disorder, current hypomanic episode (7.76/100,000), and Mild depressive episode (28.01/100,000). We expected high rates of depression as per previous findings using the DATASUS information on other age strata 12 . Further investigation is needed to evaluate these differences in more depth.…”

“…Average Marginal E ect * * * Male Age (8,12] Age (12,15] Age (15,17 Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder was the most common condition in this study. Previous studies suggest that at least 0.9% of Brazilian youth are affected by this disorder, but only 16.2%-19.9% of individuals received firstline treatment 2 .…”

“…Data from outpatient services in Brazil were used to analyse the profiles of subjects 17 years of age or below who visited the mental health services in the country. This extraction was previously performed for a similar previous paper on elderly Brazilian subjects 12 . A total amount of 1,055,891 of the 1,120,141 pulled records (94%) were from CAPSi and the other 6% came from other outpatient services.…”

Delusional Disorder in Old Age: A Hypothesis-Driven Review of Recent Work Focusing on Epidemiology, Clinical Aspects, and Outcomes

“…The first two hypotheses in our study addressed the incidence, prevalence and sex ratio of DD in old age [16,17]. High rates of DD than usually reported were found, as well as, interestingly, greater incidence in women postmenopause than premenopause.…”

“…A register study by the Brazilian Unified Health System Information Technology Department (DATASUS) attempted to determine mental health epidemiology in elderly Brazilians by studying rates of outpatient mental health visits [16]. Data were derived from 1,124,244 outpatient visits of persons over age 60 in five regions of Brazil between 2008 and 2012.…”