Objective: Planning for providing mental health services to the population needs to recognize the characteristics of audience and their referral problems for drawing a clear picture of the present status. Such studies in the area are rare. The present is aimed to study the demographic characteristics, psychiatric disorders and psychosocial problems of clients referred to counseling centers of Social Welfare Organization (Behzisty).

Materials & Methods: The present research was a cross sectional-analytic study. The research data was based on information and records gathered from counseling centers of the Welfare Organization during the year 2001 to 2009.The data was already collected through a semi-structural interview and demographic questionnaire and include 21766 samples gathered by a systematic sampling method. Data analysis was made using Chi-Square test and Kappa coefficient in SPSS 16.

Results: The findings showed that audiences of counseling services were mainly women, married, aged 40-21 years and with at least a high school degree. Mood disorders and anxiety was more prevalent than the other psychiatric disorders. Among the psychosocial problems, interpersonal problem was the highest share of referrals to the counseling centers. The concordance rate of the first and second diagnosis was 74.4%, Kappa 27% (P<0.001).

Conclusions: Considering that the most common causes of personal and telephone counseling referred to counseling centers were mood and anxiety disorders and interpersonal problems, it is necessary to dedicate the professional services to diagnosis and treatment of these disorders.