Mental disorders among Māori attending their general practitioner

Objective: This paper identifies rates of common mental disorders among Māori and non‐Māori consulting a general practitioner (GP), and explores the association between ethnicity and social and material deprivation. Method: Survey of GPs and their patients. Participants were randomly selected GPs (n = 70), and their patients (n = 3414, of whom a subset of 786 form the basis of this paper). The main comparison is between self‐identified ethnicity, mental disorder assessed by the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, and social and material deprivation measured by NZDep2001 (an area based measure), and an individualized index of deprivation. Results: Rates of mental disorder among Māori general practice attenders were higher than among non‐Māori. Overall, Māori women attenders were twice as likely as non‐Māori women attenders to have a diagnosable mental disorder. The rates of anxiety, depressive and substance use disorders were all higher for Māori than for others attending GPs. Treatment for psychological problems was offered by the GP at similar rates to both Māori and non‐Māori. Although there were differences between Māori and non‐Māori in terms of social and material deprivation, higher rates of mental disorder among Māori attending GPs compared to non‐Māori cannot be accounted for by these differences alone. Conclusions: These findings support the view that whilst social and material deprivation may play a role in the high rates of mental disorders among Māori general practice attenders, there are additional ethnicity‐specific factors involved. Interventions to address Māori mental health (whether by reducing risk factors for mental disorder, by promoting disclosure, early recognition and intervention, or by ensuring access to acceptable and effective treatments) may need to explicitly take those factors into account.