[Clinical Psychology in Primary Care: A Descriptive Study of One Year of Operation]

Our aim is to present the first year of operation of a Clinical Psychology service in a Primary Care setting.

A descriptive study was performed by analysing the requests and the care intervention of the Psychology Service, in collaboration with 36 general practitioners (33% of the staff), belonging to 6 health centres. Within the one year period, 171 outpatients from 15 years and older were referred with mild psychological disorders (> 61 in the global assessment functioning scale, APA, 2002).

A total of 111 outpatients received psychological care. The main diagnoses were adaptation disorder, affective disorder, and anxiety. More than half (54.82%) of them achieved a full recovery. After a year follow up, a drop of 25.19% was observed in medicines use.

The Primary Care Psychology team is a halfway unit between Primary Care practitioners and specialised units in order to deal with mild mental symptomatology which otherwise could be undertreated. It represents an important support for practitioners. Secondly, the early intervention can prevent mental problems becoming chronic, as shown by the drop in medication use. In spite of the not very high agreement between the practitioner's diagnoses and those made by the Psychology unit, it has set up an important means of communication and with direct and immediate interdisciplinary action. This should eventually lead to savings in economic resources and human suffering.