Seasonal affective disorder among primary care consulters in January: prevalence and month by month consultation patterns.
BACKGROUND
Little is known about the prevalence or the consultation patterns of patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) in primary care settings.


METHODS
Patients aged 16-64 years consulting a general practitioner (G.P.) during a three week period in January were screened with the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ). Interview-confirmed cases of SAD (N = 33) were matched by age and sex to controls without seasonal morbidity and primary care consultation patterns were compared over a 5 year period.


RESULTS
Of 692 patients screened, 64 (9.3%) satisfied SPAQ criteria for winter SAD. Patients with SAD showed no winter excess of consultations but were high year round consulters, averaging 1.8 times more consultations than controls.


CONCLUSIONS
High levels of SAD caseness on the SPAQ were found among patients consulting in primary care during January. Possible explanations for the high non-seasonal consultation patterns among SAD patients include somatisation and diagnostic inaccuracies.


CONCLUSIONS
Diagnostic criteria for SAD, and the SPAQ in particular, may be over-inclusive. The SPAQ completion rate (about 39% of eligible patients consulting a G.P.) was relatively low.


CONCLUSIONS
Patients with SAD (using SPAQ criteria) commonly consult their G.P.s in winter but frequency, rather than seasonality, of consultation may be a better guide to diagnosing SAD in primary care.
Eagles
J M
JM
Royal Cornhill Hospital, Aberdeen, UK.
Naji
S A
SA
Gray
D A
DA
Christie
J
J
Beattie
J A
JA
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016555:Matched-Pair Analysis; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015995:Prevalence; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012606:Scotland / Q000453:epidemiology; D016574:Seasonal Affective Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012621:Seasons