Based on data collected from service providers, patients seen by psychiatrists received more than 102,000 mental health and behavioral disorder diagnoses last year, with psychiatrists registering nearly 4,400 — or 4 percent — more such diagnoses than the year before.

In Estonia, more women than men seek psychiatric help for mental health issues. Among psychiatric patients aged 15 and older, girls and women accounted for more than half, while among younger patients, boys outnumbered girls.

One in ten psychiatric patients last year was under the age of 15, and of those, two-thirds were boys.

"The fastest increase in mental health and behavioral disorders was seen among patients under 15," said TAI senior analyst Reet Nestor. "This group had 14 percent more diagnoses than the year before, and among them, boys were diagnosed with nearly twice as many disorders as girls."

The vast majority — 90 percent — of psychiatric patients in the country are at least 15 years old, and psychiatrists recorded 4 percent more mental health and behavioral disorder diagnoses among them last year than in 2023. This included a 4 percent increase among women and girls aged 15 and up, and a percentage point less than that among men and boys in the same age group.

Last year, psychiatrists diagnosed more than 30,000 first-time cases of mental health and behavioral disorders — a 12 percent increase over 2023.

Among both men and women, the most common diagnoses over the years have been anxiety disorders, acute stress reactions and adjustment disorders.

The second most common diagnoses were mood disorders. Of those diagnosed, both anxiety- and stress-related disorders and mood disorders occurred more frequently among women than men.

What was previously the third most common diagnosis — substance-induced mental health and behavioral disorder — was more often diagnosed in men, but has become less frequent in recent years.

Rising ADHD diagnoses linked to growing awareness

The third most common diagnosis in Estonia now is behavioral and emotional disorders that usually begin in childhood, including hyperkinetic disorders. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is now the most frequent diagnosis among patients under 15, with boys diagnosed with ADHD three times more often than girls.

Nestor explained that as awareness continues to grow, ADHD has been increasingly recognized and diagnosed in adults in recent years, including those for whom it went undiagnosed in childhood. Last year, nearly 13,000 cases of hyperkinetic disorders were recorded among psychiatric patients, with over 70 percent of these patients aged 15 and older.

Psychiatrists registered 50 percent more cases of hyperkinetic disorders last year than in 2023, with diagnoses increasing especially among adult women in recent years.

In 2024, 9,660 people were discharged from psychiatric hospital care, a few hundred fewer than the year before. Their average length of stay remained 17 days. The largest share of hospitalized patients were those with substance-induced mental health and behavioral disorders.

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