A recent systematic review found a high prevalence of violence and mental distress among women trafficked for sexual exploitation; no data were identified for trafficked men and children.

To describe the clinical characteristics of trafficked people in contact with a large inner city mental health service compared with a non-trafficked cohort.

To investigate whether, compared with a non-trafficked cohort, trafficked people would be significantly more likely to have co-morbid disorders and have significantly smaller improvements in functioning at the end of an episode of care.

Study population: mental health service users who had been trafficked for exploitation and a non-trafficked service user cohort matched for gender and age. Data source: The South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLaM) Biomedical Research Centre Case Register Interactive Search (CRIS) database of anonymised full patient records (2006–2012).

We identified case records of 135 people who had been trafficked. 104 (77%) were female; age at first SLaM contact ranged from 8 to 49 years (mean 23.6, SD 8.0). 38 (28%) of the trafficked service users received psychiatric care from an emergency department. Depression (28.1%, n = 38), PTSD (19.3%, n = 26), non-affective psychoses (12.6%, n = 17) were the most frequently recorded diagnoses among trafficked service users. Further analysis is in progress and scheduled for completion by March 2013.

Significant numbers of trafficked people were seen in an inner-city mental health service; services therefore need to understand their complex needs.