Office Visits to Psychiatrists: United States, 1989-90

Advance Data 237.  Psychiatrists had an estimated 37.6 million office visits in 1989-90. This report summarizes data pertaining to these visits in terms of patient's characteristics, physician practice characteristics, and visit characteristics. Data in this report were collected from the 1989 and 1990 National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys.

Data Highlights:

The most frequent principal reason for visit was for depression, recorded at 28.2 percent of visits. Anxiety or nervousness ranked second at 15.9 percent of visits.

Females accounted for more than half (59.1 percent) of office visits to psychiatrists, significantly higher than the 40.9 percent of visits made by males.

This specialty received an average of 7.7 office visits per 100 persons per year. Visit rates were highest among persons 25-55 and 45-64 years of age.

Psychiatrists received an average of 2.7 percent of office visits made to ambulatory care physicians making them the 9th most visited physician specialty.

This page last reviewed January 11, 2007