Psychiatric disturbances seen in primary care: when to treat and when to refer

Recent advances and changes in diagnosis and treatment of various psychiatric disturbances have both increased cooperation between psychiatrists and primary care physicians and better integrated psychiatry with the remainder of medicine. With increasing emphasis on the holistic approach to patient care and more appreciation of emotional components of various physical illnesses, the primary care physician now finds it incumbent upon himself to both understand and use various pragmatic psychiatric concepts. To the benefit of the patient, the primary care physician, and the psychiatrist, this integration of psychiatry with medicine appears to be growing. Thus an overview of the major psychiatric disturbances seen by the primary care physician, as well as guidelines in when to treat and when to refer these problems, should be useful.