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Labelling and illness in primary care: comparing factors influencing general practitioners' and psychiatrists' decisions regarding patient referral to mental illness services

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Anne E. Farmer  and
Huw Griffiths
Anne E. Farmer*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Wales College of Medicine; and East Glamorgan General Hospital, Mid Glamorgan, Wales
Huw Griffiths
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Wales College of Medicine; and East Glamorgan General Hospital, Mid Glamorgan, Wales
*
1 Address for correspondence: Dr Anne Farmer, Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Wales College of Medicine, Heath Park, Cardiff CF4 4XN, South Wales.
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Synopsis

GPs and psychiatrists from South Wales were asked to make decisions based on the information included in each of 16 vignettes describing depressed and anxious subjects. This information contained randomly assigned sex, psychiatric label, good and bad psychosocial context and age as well as eight different severity ratings of depression and anxiety symptoms. Our results showed that both GPs and psychiatrists were influenced in their decision making by the severity of the illness, but that GPs alone were also strongly influenced by the presence of male sex and by the presence of a psychiatric label. Good or bad psychosocial context had no influence on the GPs' referral decision, and previous experience in psychiatry or other vocational training had no detectable effect, but this may be because of the sample size.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , August 1992 , pp. 717 - 723
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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