Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T18:01:22.576Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Pre-registration house officers' psychiatric knowledge in practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Chris Williams*
Affiliation:
Level 5 CSB, St. James's University Hospital, Beckett Street, Leeds LS9 7TF
Simon Wilson
Affiliation:
High Royds Hospital, Menston, Ilkley, LS29 6AQ
*
Correspondence
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Psychiatric distress is commonly found in general hospital patients and is associated with a poorer outcome and increased complexity of care. It is important for non-psychiatric hospital doctors to possess skills of assessment and treatment of common psychiatric problems. This survey of all house officers in their first pre-registration posts in three large teaching hospitals found that Junior doctors rarely ask about or consider the presence of psychiatric problems in their patients. Where psychiatric problems are found, house officers often feel they lack the appropriate skills of assessment and management. This has important implications for medical school course content and emphasis.

Type
Original Papers
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, 1996

References

Awad, L. & Wattis, J. (1990) Alcohol histories in hospital: does the age and sex of the patient make a difference? British Journal of Addiction, 85, 149150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crisp, A. (1994) Psychiatric contributions to the undergraduate medical curriculum. Psychiatric Bulletin, 18, 257259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, E., Mayou, R., Hawton, K., et al (1987) Psychiatric disorder in medical in-patients. Quarterly Journal of Medicine, 63, 405412.Google ScholarPubMed
General Medical Council (1993) Tomorrow's Doctors. Recommendations on Undergraduate Medical Education. London: General Medical Council.Google Scholar
House, A. O., Farthing, M. & Peveler, R. (1995) Psychological care of medical patients. British Medical Journal, 310, 14221423.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ketterer, M. W. (1993) Secondary prevention of ischaemic heart disease. Psychosomatics, 34, 478484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maguire, P. (1994) ABC of Breast diseases: Psychological aspects. British Medical Journal, 309, 16491652.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mayou, R. & Hawton, K. (1986) Psychiatric disorder in the general hospital British Journal of Psychiatry, 149, 172190.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Munro, J. & Edwards, C. (eds) (1990) McClouds' Clinical Examination, 8th Edn. Hong Kong: Churchill Livingstone.Google Scholar
Royal Colleges of Physicians and Psychiatrists (1995) Joint Working Party Report The Psychological Care of Medical Patients: Recognition of Need and Service Provision. London: RCPsych and RCP.Google Scholar
Sensky, T. (1994) The place of the psychiatrist in the new undergraduate medical curriculum. Psychiatric Bulletin, 18, 557559.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, C. J. & Curran, S. (1995) Generalists neglect Psychiatry. British Medical Journal, 311, 328.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, C. J. & Snaith, R. P. (1995) Anxiety: one of medicine's blind spots (Editorial). British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 83, 126127.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.