A survey of professional activities of psychiatrists in South Africa

To obtain information about practicing psychiatrists in South Africa, a questionnaire was mailed in 1993 to all 378 registered psychiatrists, of whom 210 (55.6 percent) responded. After selected data for nonrespondents were obtained, information was available for 357, or 94.4 percent of registered psychiatrists. Of the 261 psychiatrists practicing in South Africa, 147 (56.3 percent) were in full-time private practice. There were 6.4 psychiatrists per million population, with large discrepancies between provinces. Only 7 percent of psychiatrists spent any time working in rural areas, and only 10.8 percent could communicate in one or more African languages. These findings emphasize the magnitude of the challenge of developing a primary mental health care system in postapartheid South Africa.