A Primary Mental Health-Care Model for Rural Australia: Outcomes for Doctors and the Community

To address the high rate of depression & suicide in rural Australia requires a multifaceted approach to educate the community, improve the skills of health workers, & provide user-friendly patient counselling. This paper describes a model that covers each of these apects & details the outcomes with respect to the doctors & the community. Improved awareness in the community of mental illness & the availability of treatment, decreasing the stigma of such a diagnosis, & increasing the skills & reducing the isolation of doctors in rural areas who treat mental illness were all positive benefits from this cost-effective way of providing mental health care in a primary setting. The adoption of this model in all primary care settings is advocated. (8 refs.)