Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:47:20.109Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

PROQSY: a Computerised Technique for Psychiatric Case Identification in General Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Greg Wilkinson*
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry
A. C. Markus
Affiliation:
Thame Health Centre and Department of Community Medicine and General Practice, University of Oxford
*
De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF

Abstract

Two-stage screening for minor psychiatric morbidity was carried out with a consecutive sample of 256 patients aged 15–69 consulting an experienced GP in a semirural setting over a seven-week period. Patients completed a short GHQ, and the GP made a standardised assessment of the reason for consultation and the degree of psychological disorder. A 40% random subsample were evaluated using PROQSY, a newly developed computerised psychiatric assessment based on the CIS. PROQSY is acceptable to patients in general practice, and yields an estimate of the prevalence of minor psychiatric morbidity (33%), and validity indices for the 12-item, 28-item, and 30-item GHQs, comparable with those found in similar studies, when the CIS has been administered by an interviewer. PROQSY may be recommended as a research tool, providing a criterion measure of minor psychiatric morbidity in general practice, where it may reduce time and manpower, and eliminate interviewer bias.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1989 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bellantuono, C., Fiori, R., Zanotelli, R., et al (1987) Psychiatric screening in general practice in Italy: a validity study of the GHQ. Social Psychiatry, 22, 113117.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bridges, K. W. & Goldberg, D. P. (1986) The validation of the GHQ-28 and the use of the MMSE in neurological in-patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 548553.Google Scholar
Diamond, E. L. & Lillienfeld, A. M. (1962) Effects of errors in classification and diagnosis in various types of epidemiological studies. American Journal of Public Health, 52, 11371144.Google Scholar
Dorfman, D. D. & Alf, E. (1969) Maximum-likelihood estimation of parameters of signal detection theory and determination of confidence intervals: rating method data. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 6, 487496.Google Scholar
Egan, J. P. (1975) Signal Detection Theory and ROC Analysis. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P. (1972) The Detection of Psychiatric Illness by Questionnaire. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P. (1978) The Manual of the General Health Questionnaire. Windsor: NFER Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P., Cooper, B., Eastwood, M. R., et al (1970a) A standardised psychiatric interview for use in community surveys. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine, 24, 1823.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P. & Blackwell, B. (1970b) Psychiatric illness in general practice: a detailed study using a new method of case identification. British Medical Journal, ii, 439443.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P. & Williams, P. (1988) A User's Guide to the General Health Questionnaire. Windsor: NFER Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Hanley, J. A. & McNeil, B. J. (1982) The meaning and use of the area under a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. Radiology, 143, 2936.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanley, J. A. & McNeil, B. J. (1983) A method of comparing the areas under Receiver Operating Characteristic curves derived from the same cases. Radiology, 148, 839843.Google Scholar
Lewis, G., Pelosi, A. J., Glover, E., et al (1988) The development of a computerised assessment for minor psychiatric disorder. Psychological Medicine 18, 737745.Google Scholar
Mari, J. de J. & Williams, P. (1985) A comparison of the validity of two psychiatric screening questionnaires (GHQ-12 and SRQ-20) in Brazil, using Relative Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis. Psychological Medicine, 15, 651659.Google Scholar
Marks, J. N., Goldberg, D. P. & Hillier, V. F. (1979) Determinants of the ability of general practitioners to detect psychiatric illness. Psychological Medicine, 9, 337353.Google Scholar
Metz, C. E., Wang, P. L. & Kronman, H. B. (1984) ROCFIT. Chicago: Department of Radiology and the Franklin McLean Memorial Hospital Research Institute, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Skuse, D. & Williams, P. (1984) Screening for psychiatric disorder in general practice. Psychological Medicine, 14, 365377.Google Scholar
Surtees, P. G. (1987) Psychiatric disorder in the community and the General Health Questionnaire. British Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 828835.Google Scholar
Swets, J. A. (1964) Signal Detection and Recognition by Human Observers. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Swets, J. A. (1979) ROC analysis applied to the evaluation of medical imaging techniques. Investigative Radiology, 14, 365377.Google Scholar
Wright, A. F. & Perini, A. F. (1987) Hidden psychiatric illness: use of the General Health Questionnaire in general practice. Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 37, 164167.Google ScholarPubMed
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.