Prevalence of psychiatric disorders in three primary-care clinics in Beersheba, Israel. Concurrent assessment by the General Health Questionnaire, General Practitioners, and Research Diagnostic Criteria.
The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) had identified fully 69% of 776 respondents who attended 12 primary-care clinics as "probable cases" of psychiatric disorders, whereas the general practitioners (GPs) involved had thought only 31% had psychological problems. To investigate more accurately the prevalence of psychiatric disorders we examined 112 of the original sample with the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia, Life-time version and found only 15% to have had a Research Diagnostic Criteria disorder at the time of the initial study. Raising the GHQ threshold to 15/16 improved specificity and positive predictive value, and improved GPs' case-finding modestly. These respondents either suffered from high rates of subclinical distress or readily report subjective distress in the clinic, or both.
Benjamin
J
J
Division of Psychiatry, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheba, Israel.
Maoz
B
B
Shiber
A
A
Antonovsky
H
H
Mark
M
M
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003151:Community Health Centers; D004522:Educational Status; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005194:Family Practice / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D011320:Primary Health Care; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*