Mental Illness in Ireland: Simulating its Geographical Prevalence and the Role of Access to Services

Karyn Morrissey, Graham Clarke, Paul Williamson, Antoinette Daly and Cathal O'Donoghue
Additional contact information
Karyn Morrissey: Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZT, England
Graham Clarke: School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JZ, England
Paul Williamson: Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZT, England
Antoinette Daly: Mental Health Information Systems Unit, Health Research Board, Dublin 2, Ireland

Environment and Planning B, 2015, vol. 42, issue 2, 338-353

Abstract: Traditionally, Ireland has reported high rates of admissions to acute psychiatric facilities for mental illness in general. However, data limitations mean that there has been no research on the role of access and proximity on rates of admissions to acute psychiatric facilities. The Simulation Model of the Irish Local Economy (SMILE) produces synthetic small-area-level microdata on self-reported rates of depression. The National Psychiatric Inpatient Reporting System (NPIRS) contains spatially referenced data on admissions to acute psychiatric services (both public and private) by diagnosis. Combining the NPIRS and SMILE datasets using propensity score-matching techniques produces a small-area profile of individuals with depression that includes those who have accessed an acute psychiatric facility as well as those who have not. Linking the NPIRS and SMILE datasets allows one to examine the differential characteristics that lead individuals with depression to seek acute psychiatric services and, importantly, to see if access to these services is a confounding factor. Our finding is that access, as measured in terms of road distance, has a significant positive impact on individuals with depression using an acute psychiatric facility.

Keywords: spatial microsimulation; propensity score matching; access to psychiatric hospitals; depression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/b130054p (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirb:v:42:y:2015:i:2:p:338-353

DOI: 10.1068/b130054p

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning B
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().