Mental health issues in primary healthcare

This article describes a project that was designed to explore mental health issues arising in primary care, as a basis for understanding primary care professionals' mental health training needs. Whilst recent UK government initiatives, such as the National Service Framework for Mental Health, have emphasized the need to enhance mental healthcare in the general population, the capacity to respond effectively is likely to be dependent upon primary care professionals acquiring the relevant skills. To achieve this, a thorough understanding of the issues inherent in dealing with mental health problems in primary care is required. Given that the mental health issues facing primary care professionals may differ from those that confront mainstream mental health professionals, logic dictates that primary care professionals may require a discrete set of skills and a special approach to mental health training. The principal aim of this project was, hence, to identify mental health issues arising in clinical practice, as a first step towards identifying primary care training needs. A series of focus groups and semi-structured interviews was used to gather information about mental health issues arising in primary care, based on the experiences of primary care professionals and users' representatives. The findings suggest that primary care professionals are confronted by a wide range of mental health issues, many of which lie outside of the scope of the current National Service Framework for Mental Health. The article discusses the implications for mental health training in primary care practice and future research.