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Do GPs want community mental health facilities?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Ian Hughes
Affiliation:
Whitchurch Hospital, Park Road, Whitchurch, Cardiff CF4 7XB
Robert Kidd
Affiliation:
Cardiff, South Glamorgan
Ralph Cantor
Affiliation:
Cardiff, South Glamorgan
Stephen Killick
Affiliation:
Cardiff, South Glamorgan
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Much of a typical general practitioner's time is spent dealing with people who present with “psychological” problems. Of those people who are detected as suffering from a mental health problem, most are then dealt with by the GP without recourse to specialist services. There is a wide variation in referral rate, and a recent review (Wilkinson, 1989) suggests that GPs are most likely to refer a patient to a psychiatrist when he/she has failed to respond to previous GP treatment, an opinion about diagnosis is sought, or there is some specific request either by the patient or another person involved. One of the reasons why GPs are disinclined to refer is their perception of stigma associated with attending a psychiatric clinic, although they do not appear to be unduly perturbed by aspects of the referral process itself, such as a waiting list. Overall, it appears that around 95% of patients in general practice presenting with mental distress are not referred to a psychiatrist. As well as being concerned about the stigma associated with traditional psychiatric services, we hypothesise that another concern of GPs may be a lack of liaison and consultation between primary and secondary care services.

Type
The times
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1992

References

Brown, L. M. & Tower, J. E. C. (1990) Psychiatrists in primary care: would general practitioners welcome them? British Journal of General Practice, 40, 369371.Google Scholar
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Wilkinson, G. (1989) Referrals from general practitioners to psychiatrists and paramedical mental health professionals. British Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 7276.Google Scholar
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