This article discusses the provision of psychiatric services to rural areas. The difficulties to be met in formulating any program for furnishing psychiatric services to rural areas are, there is the ...physical fact of the distances and areas involved, the difficulty of bringing patient and therapeutic agency together, with poor roads and inadequate facilities for conveyance often hampering mobility. Another fact is cultural, the social resources of the rural community are generally less well developed than are their urban counterparts. There are many factors which enter into the provision of psychiatric service in any locality. There are many kinds of localities and many kinds of psychiatric service. In regard to the availability of qualified personnel one must take into account the training programs established. In psychiatry as in general medicine there are specialties. The psychiatrist in the mental hospital deals largely with psychotic patients. In extramural adult clinics he may be called upon to treat not only psychotic but also psychoneurotic patients as well as persons who show a variety of disturbances in behavior. Experience within the mental hospital has not necessarily equipped him to deal with these other difficulties; while in the field of child psychiatry still different techniques of treatment are required. Rural social work has its unique hazards as well as its distinct compensations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
