Psychiatric service utilization differences by sex and locale.

Underutilization of psychiatric services by men relative to women may reflect discrepancies between the male sex role in Western societies and the patient role. We hypothesize that this will be more important in a rural than a nonrural setting for two reasons. First, the relative lack of anonymity in a rural setting makes more evident incongruities between sex role conventions and actual behaviour. Second, because of the increased cultural heterogeneity of urban areas, traditional sex roles are less clearly delineated. These considerations suggest that the ratio of males to females receiving treatment in a rural setting should be lower than in a nonrural setting. It was found that for treated incidence the ratio of males to females was significantly lower in a rural than in a non-rural setting (p less than .01); for treated prevalence a lower male to female ratio was found in the rural than the nonrural setting, although this did not achieve statistical significance.