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Are frequent attenders of primary health care distressed?
H Karlsson1, V Lehtinen, M Joukamaa
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Turku, Finland.
Objective:
To measure the level of distress among frequent attenders of primary health care.
Design:
A cross-sectional study.
Setting:
Two public primary health care stations in Turku, south-western Finland
Participants:
96 frequent attenders (eleven or more visits to a physician during the previous 12 months) and 466 control patients.
Main Outcome Measure:
SCL-25, GP evaluations, self-reported symptoms and self-experienced need for care.
Results:
Frequent attenders were significantly more distressed than other patients in primary care. However, their self-experienced need for psychiatric care was very low and it did not differ from other patients self-experienced need. The GPs estimated that over 1/3 of frequent attenders suffered from mixed (physical and psychiatric) illnesses and over 1/2 from subclinical or clinical psychiatric symptoms. The corresponding proportions for other patients were significantly lower.