Depression Tips

GP or general practitioner is still the first choice when it comes to seeking help for depression. This fact came to the fore through a new poll organized by irishhealth.com A general practitioner (GP), family physician or family practitioner (FP) is a physician/medical doctor who provides primary care. A GP/FP treats acute and chronic illnesses, provides preventive care and health education for all ages and both sexes.

Another facts, which came out brightly through this poll were as under:-

• 14% said that they won’t seek help for treating their depression.
• 12% preferred to consult counselors.
• Just 3 % of the people showed interest in contacting support groups for seeking help for their depression.
• 27% of the people said that they would prefer their friends for help during depression.
• While a big percentage of 44% showed interest in going to GP for seeking help.

On the basis of these figures, it can definitely be asserted that still, GPs are taken as the first priority by a big number of depression patients, which means still they are looked at as the most efficient helpers for depression treatment. These figures confirm the fact that GPs have a big responsibility to shoulder. Keeping these figures and beliefs in mind, we can say that there is need of these GPs to be trained in such a way so that they may impart depression patients with effective treatment, which would help embanking the spate of depression in which whole world is delving slowly but steadily.

General practitioners’ attitudes to psychiatric and medical illness:

Background. General practitioners are increasingly involved in the care of patients with long-term psychiatric disorders. We have previously reported that general practitioners are less willing to treat patients with schizophrenia than those without such a diagnosis, but this may have been attributable to a reluctance to treat patients with any psychiatric or chronic illness. We, therefore, examined general practitioners’ attitudes to patients with chronic psychiatric or medical illnesses.

Methods. A random sample of 260 local general practitioners were each sent one of our case vignettes which were identical apart from mention of a previous diagnosis of schizophrenia, depression, diabetes or no illness. The general practitioners were asked to indicate their level of agreement with 13 attitudinal statements based on the vignette.

Results. One hundred and sixty-six (66%) of the general practitioners responded to the case vignettes. Those responding to the vignette about the patient with schizophrenia were less happy to have that patient on their practice list and were more concerned about the risk of violence and the child’s welfare. Those responding to the depression vignette were more likely to offer the patient antidepressants or counselling; and those who replied to the diabetes case were most likely to refer the patient to a hospital specialist. These differences were not attributable to the personal or practice characteristics of the general practitioners.

Conclusions. Patients with schizophrenia arouse concerns in general practitioners that are not simply due to those patients suffering from a psychiatric or chronic illness. Our results suggest that some patients with schizophrenia may find it difficult to register with a general practitioner and receive the integrated community-based health care service they require. Psychiatrists should provide education and support to general practitioners who look after patients with schizophrenia.