Psychiatric consultation: Characteristics, satisfaction, and perceived opportunities among referrers to a 1-time...

To further understand and optimize primary care provider (PCP) referrals to a 1-time psychiatric consultation service by developing profiles of PCP referrers, assessing PCP satisfaction with the service, and determining intervention opportunities.

Secondary analysis of a referral database and subsequent cross-sectional survey of referrers.

Winnipeg, Man.

All family physicians who had made at least 1 referral in 2017 to the Centralized Psychiatric Consultation Service for Adults, a 1-time consultation service.

Referral frequency, individual and practice characteristics, satisfaction with the Centralized Psychiatric Consultation Service for Adults, and subjective drivers of referral activity were assessed. Interest in a range of intervention opportunities to increase mental health knowledge and support were also examined.

Of the 403 family physicians who referred patients to the consultation service in 2017, a total of 111 (27.5%) responded to the survey. Among all referrers, 287 (71.2%) were low referrers (1 to 4 referrals), 65 (16.1%) were moderate referrers (5 to 9 referrals), and 51 (12.7%) were high referrers (≥10 referrals). Solo practice (P=.04) and no access to collaborative mental health services (P<.001) were significantly associated with being a high referrer. Roughly 26.3% of low referrers, 29.2% of moderate referrers, and 15.4% of high referrers were satisfied with wait times for the service. Higher referrers did not identify a lack of comfort with providing psychiatric care as a driver of referrals; more indicated that they had a high volume of patients with mental health needs, that there was a lack of access to alternative services, and that patients sometimes requested referral. Overall, more than 40% of respondents expressed interest in a mental health care navigator, hard-copy resource information, and rapid access to consultation advice via telephone or an electronic platform. There was less interest in other proposed interventions.

We found referrers to the Centralized Psychiatric Consultation Service for Adults to be clustered based on specific practice characteristics, as well as provider-patient factors. Overall, satisfaction with the service was fair and PCPs were not highly interested in a variety of proposed interventions. Future studies should explore how useful 1-time consultation services are for solo-practising PCPs and how best to support these and other PCPs in their management of patients with mental health needs.