Patients with mental illness in primary health care. A long-term follow-up of health care utilization and contact patterns with psychiatric care.
OBJECTIVE
Long-term follow-up of the use of health care services in patients with a mental illness identified in primary care. A 10-year follow-up of all health care utilization in five 1-year cohorts of patients with a mental illness identified in primary health care services of a Swedish health care district.


METHODS
1167 (408 males, 759 females) with mental illness.


RESULTS
A total of 27.1% of the patients were in contact with psychiatric services during follow-up. The strongest associations with contact with psychiatric services concerned age (younger) and diagnosis (dependence, affective psychosis). Patients with a diagnosis of psychosis had the highest utilization of psychiatric services. Patients in contact with psychiatric care had a higher consumption of primary health care and of somatic outpatient and inpatient care. A subgroup identified as high consumers consumed 44% of the total health care resources used by the cohort.


CONCLUSIONS
The use of health care services was very skewed. Patients in contact with psychiatric services were more frequent users of other medical services.
Hansson
L
L
Department of Psychiatry, University of Lund, Sweden.
Persson
K B
KB
Borgquist
L
L
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006296:Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011570:Psychiatry; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013548:Sweden