Medical help-seeking by motor vehicle accident claimants

The assessment of general psychiatric damages in personal injury cases is partly determined by evidence that the claimant has attempted to mitigate their losses by seeking medical help. However, there is no evidence that seeking medical help for a psychiatric injury is typical behaviour. The general practice consultation behaviour of 100 claimants with chronic physical and psychiatric injury with an onset at the time of a motor vehicle accident, was assessed over a 12-month period after the injury. GP consultations for physical and psychiatric symptoms were compared. At 12 months after the accident 53 (95% CI 42.7, 63.3) had consulted their GP with psychiatric symptoms and 94 (95% CI 88.8, 99.2) had consulted their GP with physical symptoms. Neither the sex, age or a pre-accident history of help-seeking for psychological symptoms was significantly predictive of post-accident help seeking for psychiatric injury. The results from this study provide information about the weight that should be given to medical help-seeking as a factor in assessing the value of claims for general psychiatric damages in personal injury cases.