 |
|
Unrecognized Mental Illness in Primary Care
Patricia Samuelson, MD
Sacramento, Calif
Arch Fam Med. 1995;4(7):581.
|
|
| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings. |
|
|
|
The fine article by Higgins1 in the October issue of the Archives points to an apparent paradox that patients not clinically suspected to have a psychiatric illness but found to have one on screening do not respond well to treatment. This is in contrast to those patients who present with suggestive symptoms. I suggest that one possible explanation is that this reflects the well-known phenomenon of the high rate of false positives in a population with low prevalence of the condition for which we screen. If we accept that the likelihood of true major depression, for example, is lower in an asymptomatic population than in those presenting with complaints, these results are readily explained. In fact, we must question the widely accepted view that primary care physicians fail to recognize affective disorders in a large number of patients and question instead the validity of the structured psychiatric interview as
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
|
