Use of Psychotherapy in a Representative Adult Community Sample in São Paulo, Brazil

Little is known about the use of psychotherapy to treat common mental disorders in a major city in a middle-income country. Our data come from in-home interviews with a stratified random sample of 2000 community residents aged 18 to 65 years in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. the information obtained included sociodemographic characteristics; psychotropic drugs; mental status; and lifetime, previous 12 months, and current use of psychotherapy. Logistic regression was used to examine determinants of use of psychotherapy. of the sample, 22.7% met General Health Questionnaire-12 criteria for common mental disorders. Lifetime, previous 12 months, and current use of psychotherapy were reported by 14.6%, 4.6%, and 2.3% of the sample, respectively. Users typically were women, were more educated, had higher income, were not married, were unemployed, and had common mental disorders. Further analysis found that 47% (with higher education and income) paid out-of-pocket, and 53% used psychotropic medication. Psychotherapy does not seem to be the preferred treatment of common mental disorders.Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Bolsista de Produtividade em PesquisaNational Institute on AgingUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Escola Paulista Med, Dept Psychiat, UNIFESP, BR-04038020 São Paulo, BrazilDuke Univ, Med Ctr, Ctr Study Aging & Human Dev, Durham, NC 27710 USAUniv Bandeirantes, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Escola Paulista Med, Dept Psychiat, UNIFESP, BR-04038020 São Paulo, BrazilBolsista de Produtividade em Pesquisa: 306156/2011-3National Institute on Aging: 1P30 AG028716Web of Scienc