Psychiatric Outpatients in a General Hospital of Ethiopia: Diagnostic and Sociodemographic Characteristics

Abstract

Delivery of mental health care in developing countries has been woefully inadequate. General hospital psychiatric units can play a significant role in providing care to the mentally ill as well as in the training of health professionals. The problems of mental illness are practically the same everywhere as has been highlighted in this paper, which discusses the functioning and diagnostic and demographic data of such a unit in Ethiopia. The paper also compares diagnostic data from Ethiopia with that of an Indian and a British study.