Psychiatric intervention in the Community has been one of the most relevant activities developed by our Department.

It seems, in fact, of major interest this approach that leads to an earlier evaluation, and therefore, diagnosis and therapeutic procedures.

The authors collected data from clinical records of patients, followed in Águas Santas Health Centre (Primary Health Care Centre), which were referred to Psychiatric consultation from 1 January to 31 December 2006. This data was used in order to fulfil an investigation protocol, concerning: socio-demographic features, psychiatric diagnoses, therapeutic interventions, past psychiatric history and final orientation, either to the general practitioner or to a specialized psychiatric ambulatory clinic, in St Jonh's hospital. Preliminary results show that most of the patients were medicated before psychiatric consultation, time to answer the request was at least 30 days, the main diagnosis were Depressive Disorders and Personality Disorders and the majority of the patients still be followed by their General Practitioner in the Health Centre outpatient clinic.

The main propose of this investigation is to evaluate the importance and efficacy of this kind of psychiatric intervention and conclude about ways of improving these same items.