Comparison of Rates of Mental Health Disorders in States that Give Prescription Privileges to Psychologists versus States that Do Not

Abstract

The primary question informing this research is whether extending prescription privileges to psychologists can improve rates of mental health disorders and reduce disparities between rural and urban regions. Many scholars have suggested that giving psychologists the ability to prescribe medication can help expand access to care in these areas (e.g., Aston et al., 2020; Baker, McFall, & Shoham, 2008; Berland, 2013; Bernal, 2017; Choudhury & Plemmons, 2021; Houghton, 2016; Johnson, 2009; Safriet, 2002; Tompkins & Johnson, 2016). To test the hypothesis that mental health care access and outcomes are better in states where psychologists can prescribe compared to states of similarly sized populations where psychologists cannot prescribe a comparison was made of state-level aggregate data on the rates of mental health disorders in the prescribing states of New Mexico, Iowa, and Idaho ("Prescribing States"), and the non-prescribing states of Kansas, Nevada, and Montana ("Non-prescribing States"). The states were chosen for this analysis so that the size of the population in the prescribing states versus non-prescribing states were comparable in population sizes, with sufficient data to allow a comparison of mental health outcomes. The main results were that overall rates of mental health conditions were lower in Prescribing than the Non-prescribing States suggesting that access to care and mental health resources may in part be addressed if, nationwide and legislatively, psychologists are allowed to prescribe.