Care Seeking Behavior and Treatment Gap for Mental Health Conditions in Bangladesh: Evidence from the National Mental Health Survey 2019

Abstract

Abstract Background: The study provides evidence of the existing pattern of mental healthcare-seeking behavior and treatment gaps among the adult population in Bangladesh, and identifies the factors that influence the decision of the patients with mental illness to seek mental health care. Methods:We used the National Mental Health Survey Bangladesh 2019 dataset with 7270 households to identify the patterns of and facilitators for seeking mental health care in Bangladesh. A Probit model using a standard normal cumulative distribution function (CDF) with three specifications has been applied to identify the factors influencing mental healthcare-seeking behavior and the probability of seeking mental healthcare services in Bangladesh. Results:About 19% of the total adult population have mental health disorder in the country. Among the patinets with mental illness, only 10% seek healthcare services from different sources of mental healthcare services. Patients with addictive disorder show the lowest interest in seeking healthcare services, while more patients receive treatment for bipolar disorder. The findings suggest that while 34.4% of bipolar disorder patients receive treatment for mental health, only 4.8% of patients with addictive disorder seek healthcare services. The Probit model shows that having other mentally disordered family members is the only statistically significant determinant among the socio-economic factors, such as gender, age, religion, education level and residential status, that influnec treatment seeking behaviour. The marginal effects analysis shows that the existence of mentally disordered family members increases the probability of seeking mental health care services by around 6%. The other socio-economic variables considered in the study are found statistically insignificant. However, a married woman has a significantly higher likelihood of seeking treatment than an unmarried woman, while the family size is the only variable that significantly influences treatment-seeking behavior for men. Conclusion: Though mental health conditions are major public health concerns in Bangladesh, the treatment-seeking behavior among the people with mental diorder is very low, implying a large treatment gap for mental health conditions. The findings indicate the urgent need to increase mental health service coverage among mental health patients.