Frequent attendance in family practice and common mental disorders in an open access health care system.

UNLABELLED: Frequent attenders in family practice are known to have higher rates of mental disorder. However little is known about specific psychiatric disorders and whether this behavior extends to specialist services, in an open access fee-for-service health care system. METHODS: 1060 patients from 46 family practices completed the Patient Health Questionnaire and the Client Service Receipt Inventory. During the consultation, family practitioners blind to the questionnaire responses rated the severity of mental health and physical disorders. The 10% of patients with the highest number of 6-month consultations in six age and sex stratified groups were defined as frequent attenders. RESULTS: After adjustments for sociodemographic variables, physical health and other psychiatric diagnoses, patients with a somatoform disorder were more likely to be frequent attenders, with an odds ratio of 2.3 (95% CI: 1.3-3.8, p=.002). CONCLUSION: When adjusting for confounders, among the four psychiatric diagnoses investigated only somatoform disorders remain significantly associated with frequent attendance. Physical health and chronic disease were no longer associated with frequent attendance which does not support the hypothesis that in an open access fee-for-service system, patients will consult for a wider range of health problems. Greater investigation into unexplained somatic symptoms could help reduce the frequency of attendance in both primary and secondary care, as this behaviour appears to be a general health-seeking drive than extends beyond family practice.

The mental health of doctor-shoppers: experience from a patient-led fee-for-service primary care setting.

BACKGROUND: Doctor-shopping may reflect unmet patient needs and places a significant burden on health resources; however little is known about its underlying reasons and how it relates to mental illness and its recognition in an open access fee-for-service setting. METHODS: In 2003-2004, consecutive patients of 46 French general practitioners (GPs), completed in the waiting room the self-report Patient Health Questionnaire and reported on service use in the past six months. During the consultation, GPs rated the severity of any physical and psychiatric disorders. RESULTS: Of 1079 patients, those rated by the GP as having a common mental disorder were significantly more likely to be doctor-shoppers but only if visiting another GP because of dissatisfaction with previous care (OR=2.3, 95% CI: 1.4-3.7). A similar trend is observed for those identified as having a common mental disorder by the Patient Health Questionnaire. Among patients with a common mental disorder, 'dissatisfied' doctor-shoppers were significantly more likely to be recognised as cases by the GP, adjusting for covariates (OR=6, 95% CI: 2.1-17.2). This was not the case for those doctor-shopping for practical reasons alone. CONCLUSION: Doctor-shopping behaviour is associated with higher rates of mental illness and, among cases, an increased likelihood of recognition by the GP, only however for doctor-shoppers dissatisfied with previous care. This suggests a benefit to letting patients choose their GP as is the case in France and change if not satisfied.

Long-term post-operative cognitive decline in the elderly: the effects of anesthesia type, apolipoprotein E genotype, and clinical antecedents.

Cognitive dysfunction in the elderly commonly observed following anesthesia has been attributed to age-related neuronal changes exacerbated by pharmacotoxic effects. However, the extent to which these changes may persist following recovery from surgery is still largely unknown. This study investigates the long-term effects of anesthesia on cognitive functioning after orthopedic surgery in 270 elderly patients over the age of 65 who completed a computerized cognitive battery before and 8 days, 4 and 13 months after surgery. Their performance was compared to those of 310 elderly controls who completed the same neuropsychiatric evaluation at baseline and one-year interval. Multivariate analyses adjusted for socio-demographic variables, depressive symptomatology, vascular pathology as well as baseline cognitive performance. We found early and transient post-operative decline in reaction time and constructional praxis. With regard to long-term changes we observed improvement compared to controls in most verbal tasks (probably due to learning effects). On the other hand, a clear dissociation effect was observed for several areas of visuospatial functioning which persisted up to the 13-month follow-up. This specific pattern of visuospatial deficit was found to be independent of apolipoprotein E genotype and closely resembles what has recently been termed vascular mild cognitive impairment, in turn associated with subtle sub-cortical vascular changes. The observation of only minor differences between persons operated by general and regional anesthesia makes it difficult to attribute these changes directly to the anesthetic agents themselves, suggesting that cognitive dysfunction may be attributable at least in part to peri-operative conditions, notably stress and glucocorticoid exposure.

Use of the PRIME-MD Patient Health Questionnaire for estimating the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in French primary care: comparison with family practitioner estimates and relationship to psychotropic medication use.

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study were to establish provisional psychiatric diagnoses using the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) and to describe family practitioner (FP) case recognition, survey-day prescription of anxiolytic and antidepressant medications and overall consumption rates (medication use). METHODS: Between October 2003 and April 2004, 1151 consecutive patients (> or = 18 years old) of 46 FPs practicing in and around the city of Montpellier, France, completed the PHQ. During the consultation, FPs rated the severity of any psychiatric disorder. RESULTS: PHQ prevalence rates (FP case recognition percentages are given in parentheses) were as follows: 10.9% (36%) for probable alcohol abuse/dependence; 11.3% (40%) for somatoform disorder; 9.1% (75%) for major depression; 7.4% (42%) for other depressive disorders; 7.5% (69%) for panic disorder; and 6% (69%) for other anxiety disorders. The prescription rate for all study patients was 11.3%, ranging from 6.2% for those without a PHQ disorder to 30.3% for those with a PHQ diagnosis of anxiety or depression to 48.2% for FP-recognized cases. The estimated survey-day consumption rate for these medications was 19.4%. CONCLUSIONS: High consumption of anxiolytic and antidepressant medications in France is confirmed but not explained either by higher prevalence rates of psychiatric disorders as compared with other locations or by unusually high survey-day prescription rates. A possible explanation would be the organization of the French health care system, which has multiple sources for obtaining medication.