Agreement on diagnoses of mental disorder in the primary health care of Turku, Finland.
Primary health care is in the central position in the general sphere of mental health services. This article deals with, as a part of a joint Nordic project, the occurrence of mental disorders of patients in primary health care as based on the material (n = 1,000) collected in the health centre of Turku. The relation of the occurrence of mental disorders as diagnosed by means of a standardized psychiatric interview method (PSE) to the disorders, recognized by general practitioners (GPs) working in the health centre is also observed. It was found that one fourth of the patients had a clear mental disorder that required treatment, while studies in the general population, using the same method, reveal only 10% as having some kind of mental disorder. Three quarters of the evident mental disorders recognized by GPs were diagnosed as such also by the PSE, but the GPs were capable of recognizing only 43% of the cases identified by the PSE. On the basis of these results, the importance of the mental health issue in the basic and postgraduate training of the general practitioners must be emphasized.
Lehtinen
V
V
Mental Health Unit, National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health, Kunnallissairaalantie 20, FIN-20700 Turku, Finland; Department of Psychiatry, University of Turku, Kunnallissairaalantie 20, FIN-20700 Turku, Finland.
Joukamaa
M
M
Karlsson
H
H
Rouhe
E
E