Abstract
Abstract Background Access to mental health service is an important problem globally. The probability of using a particular health service is affected by increased distances to the location of care and reducing this distance can reduce travel time and cost of accessing these services. This study aimed to assess spatial distribution and accessibility to mental health care services in Porto, the second largest city in Portugal. Methods Data regarding the population statistics in Porto was obtained from the Population and Housing census in 2011 while datasets related to all the mental health facilities in Porto were obtained from ACES Porto Oriental and Carta social. Standard distance, Nearest neighbor index, average distance to a mental health service were all computed. All spatial analysis techniques were employed in ARC/GIS environment. Results The study findings indicated that the mental health services were clustered around three municipalities in Porto; Campanhã, Bonfim and Paranhos. The mean time to access a mental health service was 6.47±3.726 minutes and the maximum time to reach a service center among the residents was 19.44 minutes. Pearson correlation showed a significant negative moderate association between the population density and the average near distance to a mental health service (r = -0.617, p = 0.002). 77.7% of the population lived within 1 km of a mental health service. Conclusions Mental health services were clustered in some parishes in Porto. A significant proportion of the residents were living near a mental health service. However, certain areas did not have adequate numbers of mental healthservices. It is important to determine areas of mental health service shortage to help in planning the location of mental health services. Key messages Mental health services are clustered around areas of high population density in Porto. There is need for more mental health services to serve the needs of people living in sparsely populated areas.
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