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Improving House Physicians' Assessments of Self-poisoning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Wendy K. Burn ,
J. Guy Edwards  and
David Machin
Wendy K. Burn
Affiliation:
St James's Hospital, Leeds LS9 7OF
J. Guy Edwards*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Royal South Hants Hospital, Graham Road, Southampton SO9 4PE
David Machin
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council, Cancer Trials Office, 5 Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 2BW
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

A questionnaire was developed to help the assessment of patients who take overdoses. Twenty-four house physicians in Southampton university hospitals were randomly divided into a group who used the questionnaire and another group who asked whatever questions they felt appropriate. One hundred and fifty patients who had taken overdoses were included in the study. After the house physician's assessment, a research assistant interviewed all of the patients and the two assessments for each patient were then compared. There was greater agreement between the research assistant and the house physicians who used the questionnaire than those who interviewed patients in an unstructured way with respect to assessments of severity of depression, purpose of the act, suicidal intent, diagnosis, and future management.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 157 , Issue 1 , July 1990 , pp. 95 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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