RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: Because of priests act as the leader and are the spiritual center to community therefore the good mental health in priests is a significant factor to improve good mental health in community MATERIAL AND METHOD: The author conducted the retrospective study in Department of Psychiatry, Priest Hospital the data was collected from the chart of outpatients and inpatients between October 2003 and September 2007, using standard criteria according to WHO's DSM IV and ICD 10. RESULTS: There were 378,982 outpatients and 11,498 psychiatric cases received treatment. The mean age was 47.5 years. There were anxiety disorders 45.38%, schizophrenia 15.28%, depressive episodes 13.43%, adjustment disorders 10.27%, unspecified dementia 3.44%, somatoform disorders 2.46%, persistent delusional disorder 2% and other psychiatric disorders. 45% of the patients come from temples in Bangkok Metropolitan area, and the rest came from rural area. Most of the priests had graduated from primary and secondary school or higher CONCLUSION: This is a preliminary study that shows the incidence of mental disease and demographic data for future planning of management, prevention and rehabilitation of mental illness the most effective benefit for priest-novice in the future.