Tai Pong Lam1, Kai Sing Sun2, Leon Piterman3, Kwok Fai Lam4, Man Kay Poon5, Christopher See6, Dan Wu7. 1. MBBS, MFM, PhD, MD, FRACGP, FHKAM, FRCP, Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, HK. tplam@hku.hk. 2. BSc, MA, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, HK. 3. MBBS, MD, MMed, MEdSt, FRCP, FRACGP, Professor, Department of General Practice, Monash University, Vic. 4. BA, MA, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, HK. 5. MBBS, PDipComPsychMed, PDipIntMed @ Therapeutics, PhD, Honorary Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, HK. 6. MB BChir, MA, PGCE, PhD, Lecturer, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, HK. 7. BSc (Med), MSc, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Project-China, Guangzhou, China.
Abstract
METHOD: A questionnaire survey was conducted among GPs. Of the 516 respondents, 76 (14.7%) had attended a one‑year postgraduate mental health training course. RESULTS: The GPs with mental health training saw significantly more patients with mental health problems per week (median class 11-15 versus 6-10) and treated a higher percentage of patients with mental health problems (median class 41-60% versus 21-40%). The differences remained significant, with odds ratios of 2.6 for both indicators after controlling for gender, healthcare setting and years of practice. DISCUSSION: Policies should promote training of GPs as part of the increasing workforce for mental healthcare. Estimated from the results, GPs with mental health training have nearly triple the number of consultations related to mental health, compared with other GPs (340 versus 120 per year).
METHOD: A questionnaire survey was conducted among GPs. Of the 516 respondents, 76 (14.7%) had attended a one‑year postgraduate mental health training course. RESULTS: The GPs with mental health training saw significantly more patients with mental health problems per week (median class 11-15 versus 6-10) and treated a higher percentage of patients with mental health problems (median class 41-60% versus 21-40%). The differences remained significant, with odds ratios of 2.6 for both indicators after controlling for gender, healthcare setting and years of practice. DISCUSSION: Policies should promote training of GPs as part of the increasing workforce for mental healthcare. Estimated from the results, GPs with mental health training have nearly triple the number of consultations related to mental health, compared with other GPs (340 versus 120 per year).
Authors: Pramendra P Gupta; Pallawi Jyotsana; Chris Larrison; Shelly Rodrigues; Cindy Lam; Chris Dowrick Journal: J Family Med Prim Care Date: 2020-05-31
Authors: Chris Dowrick; Ryuki Kassai; Cindy L K Lam; Raymond W Lam; Garth Manning; Jill Murphy; Chee H Ng; Chandramani Thuraisingham Journal: J Multidiscip Healthc Date: 2020-11-25