Referral rates to a regional adolescent psychiatric service: a comparison of visited and unvisited general practitioners.
A survey was undertaken through personal visits to general practitioners to determine the effectiveness of distributing information about a Regional Adolescent Psychiatric Service for emotionally and conduct disordered adolescents. The referral rates to the Unit over the four years before, and over the four years after the period of the visits were recorded both for those GPs who were visited and those who were not. The findings show an immediate significant increase in referral rates among the visited general practitioners, which was still evident after four years. This finding supports the hypothesis that a personal approach is more likely to be an effective means of disseminating information than posted printed materials. This paper also contains a description of other valuable, but unquantifiable results.
Adolescent Psychiatry Young People's Unit, Macclesfield.
P
P
Wells
B
B
Faragher
D000293:Adolescent; D016497:Adolescent Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000296:Adolescent Psychiatry; D004739:England; D006801:Humans; D010821:Physicians, Family / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*