Patient-oriented models for linking primary care and mental health care

Although there has been much importance attached to the relationship between mental health care and general health care, there have been few attempts to systematically describe the nature of the relationships between these two domains of health care. The author reviews other attempts to develop models of interaction between the two systems, describes the dimensions of a patient-oriented set of models for the linkage between mental health and general health care providers, and suggests how these models fit into the overall context of clinical services research at the interface between these two systems of care.