Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:41:05.735Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Severity of symptoms of psychiatric outpatients: use of the General Health Questionnaire in hospital and general practice patients

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

A. C. P. Sims  and
P. H. Salmons
A. C. P. Sims
Affiliation:
Saints Hospital, Birmingham
P. H. Salmons
Affiliation:
Saints Hospital, Birmingham
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

A sample of 91 new referrals to a community based psychiatric outpatient service was compared with a cross-matched control sample of 107 patients attending the general practitioner's surgery. The subjects in both groups completed the General Health Questionnaire and there was a very marked difference between the scores of the two groups. Seventy-five of the psychiatric group had a high score on the questionnaire, and a large number of these were extremely high, while 74 of the general practice group had a low score. The ‘false’ positives and negatives are discussed. It is considered that the validity of this questionnaire as a screening device for demonstrating psychiatric morbidity and severity in general practice is further established in this study by showing that in matched samples the expected psychiatric morbidity in general practice can be compared with the much greater morbidity in psychiatric outpatient referrals. For the psychiatric sample more patients showed high scores and these tended to be much higher.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , February 1975 , pp. 62 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Balint, M. (1965). The doctor's therapeutic function. Lancet, 1, 1177–1180.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
General Register Office (1966). Classification of Occupations, 1966. H.M.S.O.: London.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P., and Blackwell, B. (1970). Psychiatric illness in general practice. A detailed study using a new method of case identification. British Medical Journal, 2, 439–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, D. P. (1972). The Detection of Psychiatric Illness by Questionnaire. Maudsley Monographs No. 21. Oxford University Press: London.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. A. W. (1973). A further study of psychiatric out-patient services in Manchester. An operational study of general practitioner and patient expectation. British Journal of Psychiatry, 123, 185–191.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaeser, A. C., and Cooper, B. (1971). The psychiatric patient, the general practitioner, and the outpatient clinic: an operational study and a review. Psychological Medicine, 1, 312–325.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kessel, W. I. N. (1960). Psychiatric morbidity in a London general practice. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine, 14, 16–22.Google Scholar
Kessel, W. I. N. (1963). Who ought to see a psychiatrist? Lancet, 1, 1092–1095.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawnsley, K., and Loudon, J. B. (1962). Factors influencing the referral of patients to psychiatrists by general practitioners. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine, 16, 174–182.Google ScholarPubMed
Shepherd, M., Cooper, B., Brown, A. C., and Kalton, G. W. (1966). Psychiatric Illness in General Practice. Oxford University Press: London.Google Scholar
Sims, A. (1973). Mortality in neurosis, Lancet, 2, 1072–1076.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sims, A., and Gooding, K. (1974). The psychiatric outcome of ‘normal’ people at follow-up. (Unpublished.)Google Scholar
Trethowan, W. H. (1968). Psychiatric emergencies in general practice. British Medical Journal, 4, 164–166.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed