Mental health problems and the use of rehabilitative psychotherapy – regional inequality in Finland

Background There are prominent sociodemographic differences in mental health in Finland. At the same time, a growing number of people receive rehabilitative psychotherapy. We aimed to examine if the prevalence of psychotherapy use corresponded to the prevalence of self-reported mental health problems across different regions in Finland.

Methods We used register-based data from Statistics Finland and The Social Insurance Institution (n=661743) and FinHealth2017 survey data (n=2553) from working age 18–64 population. We estimated the prevalence of self-reported mental health problems, the use of rehabilitative psychotherapy and the ratio (with 95% CI) of these prevalences in different collaborative areas.

Results There were significant regional differences both in the prevalence of self-reported mental health problems and the use of rehabilitative psychotherapy. In the Northern Finland collaborative area, there were 36 participants reporting mental health problems per one participant receiving rehabilitative psychotherapy. In the Southern and Eastern Finland collaborative areas, the correspondent figure was 19. In the Inland Finland and Western Finland collaborative areas the correspondent figures were 18 and 24.

Conclusions Regional differences in self-reported mental health problems and mental health services are an important source of inequality in Finland. This should be one focus in implementing the current reform of healthcare and social welfare structures.

Johanna Kausto, Kia Gluschkoff, Sanna Selinheimo, Turunen Jarno, Miettinen Sari, Päivikki Koponen, Kaija Appelqvist-Schmidlechner, Ari Väänänen