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Objective: To research the rate of visiting medical institutions of patients with depression. Methods: The objects of this study were 295 patients with depression, 234 cases with MDE and 61 cases with dysthymic disorder, who were screened out and confirmed in the sampling survey of depression in rural residents of Liuyang from March to May 2007, all accorded with the DSM-IV criteria. All of the objects were interviewed with “Quetionaire on Behaviors of Help Seeking of Patients with Mental Disorders” (self-compiled) by investigators. Results: 45 cases (13.5%) had sought help from xiang/town health centre or other formal medical institutions of higher level. The rate of seeking help from formal medical institutions in females (18.9%) was higher than in males (9.1%), and the difference had statistical significance ( χ2=5.541, P=0.023). The results of multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the influential factors on the rate of help-seeking were sex(OR=0.363, 95%CI： 0.164～0.805), age(OR=1.040, 1.012～1.069), occupation of the decision maker of the family(OR=0.352, 0.176～0.707), the type of family(OR=2.593, 1.292～5.204), family history of mental disorder (OR= 3.642, 1.084～12.235). Among 45 patients who had sought help from medical institutions, 1.7%(5/295) of the patients with MDE had ever gone to psychiatrists, and only 3 cases (1.0% ) with past MDE had been treated by psychiatric drugs. Conclusion: The utilazation of mental health services is considerablly poor in rural patients with depression in Liuyang. The factors effect on the utilization of health services are sex, age, education level, family type, income per capita of the family and occupation of the decision maker in family.
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