We need comprehensive information about the workload of psychiatrists, about the patients they treat and the issues raised in the process. Psychiatrists are in short supply in Australia (Fletcher and Schofield, 2007), and steadily aging as a professional group. In 1999, one quarter of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) members were aged 55 years and over (Draper, Winfield and Luscombe, 1999). This proportion had increased to almost 40% by 2003 (AIHW, 2005). As older psychiatrists retire the shortage of psychiatrists will become more acute (Fletcher and Schofield, 2007).
Concomitantly as the Australian population increases, so will the approximately one in five Australians who experience mental illness rise as a total number of Australians requiring mental health services (AMWAC, 1999, in Fletcher and Schofield, 2007).
The different distribution of psychiatrists between metropolitan and rural areas remains an ongoing concern. People living in rural and remote areas have less than half as much access to psychiatrists as metropolitan Australians. There is difficulty in recruiting psychiatrists to public practice and an increasing reliance on overseas graduates in rural areas (Wilks, Browne, and Jenner, 2008).
The Private Mental Health Alliance (PMHA) Quality Improvement Project (QIP), with the support of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) conducted an online Survey of Psychiatrists’ Workload (WLS) in March 2012.
The WLS looked at:
- Psychiatrist (participant) demographics
- Practice characteristics
- Patient demographics
- Patient characteristics: clinical; lifestyle; and estimates of average numbers of patients seen over a defined time-frame
- Other agencies and professionals involved in patient care
- Perception of changes in patient population over time
A copy of the final report is available below.
PMHA-QIP Psychiatrists' Workload Survey 2012 - Final Report
Our special thanks goes to the PMHA’s Centralised Data Management Service (CDMS) Director, Mr Allen Morris-Yates, for his statistical analyses, to Ellie Rosenfeld, PMHA QIP Senior Research Officer, to Dr Bill Pring, and to Professor Andrew Page of the University of Western Australia, who was the Expert Adviser for QIP, for all their ongoing critique and advice.
Our very sincere thanks go to the AMA and the RANZCP who supported and promoted the QIP and in particular the Outcomes in Private Psychiatry Practice project.
We are indebted to members of the PMHA Private Psychiatrists’ Research Network and AMA Psychiatrist Group who participated in piloting the Workload Survey.
References
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare: Mental health services in Australia, 2003-04. Canberra, AIHW (Mental Health Series no. 8); 2005.
Australian Medical Workforce Advisory Committee: The specialist psychiatry workforce in Australia: supply, requirements and projections 1999-2010. (1999) Sydney, AMWAC; 1999.
Draper B, Winfield S and Luscombe G (1999), The Senior Psychiatrist Survey 1: age and psychiatric practice ANZJ Psychiatry 1999: 33: 701-708.
Fletcher S and Schofield D (2007), ‘The impact of generational change and retirement on psychiatry to 2025’ Biomed Central Health Services Research, Vol. 7: 141.
Wilks C, Browne M, Jenner B (2008), Attracting psychiatrists to a rural area – 10 years on. Rural and Remote Health 8: 824.