Socio-Demographic Profile of Out-Patient Clinic First Assessment

Abstract

Introduction:

Ramon y Cajal Hospital is the referencial center for the mental health unit used in this study, whose outpatients are attended by psychiatrist consultants. First assessment is conducted by general practicioners, or other specialists. Once assessed, a decision must be made: to follow-up, carry out psychological therapies, refer to social workers or other resources.

Objectives:

To investigate socio-demographic and clinical profiles at the psychiatric outpatients unit as a result of an analysis of the first assessment data.

Methods:

We include 9 variables from 104 first assessments carried out in our center.

Results:

48,27 is the age range of our sample, with 58,65% female and 50,1 % married. Most referrals are requested by primary care, being only 14,42% by psychiatric ward units and other medical specialities. Anxiety is the primary reason for requiring psychiatric care (36, 54%) and affective disorders (35,58%), followed by psychosomatic events. With respect to diagnosis at first consultation, we found, as expected, that the most frequent disorders are anxiety (37,50 %) and depression (32,69%).71,15% of our patients needed a follow up by us and 8,65 % are discharged after the first assessment. The rest are reffered to other mental health resources.

Conclusions:

As a result of the analysis we found out that minor pathology is the most common reason for care in our centre, being refered mostly by general practicioners. So psycho educational programmes and continuous training in general medicine could be needed in order to improve mental health and to reduce costs of the mental health system.