These surveys indicate that most of the 47.8 million estimated ambulatory care visits for patients with primary mental health diagnoses during 2007-2008 were made most often by women (29.4 million) and most often for any depressive disorder (31%), followed by schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders (23%). Discharged patients with a primary diagnosis of a mental illness were more often aged 18-64 years (98 per 10,000 population) than 65 or older (64 per 10,000). This relationship with age was reversed among discharged patients with mental illness listed as any of the diagnoses, ranging from 231 per 10,000 among patients aged 18-44 years to 651 per 10,000 among those aged 65 years or older. In a 2004 survey, diagnoses of mental illness – most commonly dementia and Alzheimer’s disease – also were shown to increase with age among nursing home residents, from 18.7% in residents aged 65-74 years to 23.5% in those aged 85 years or older.
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