A comparison of referrals to primary-care and hospital out-patient clinics.

All referrals from two general practices to psychiatrists in hospital and primary-care out-patient clinics were examined. Women in all diagnostic groups were preferentially referred to the primary-care clinics, which provided especially for psychotic and chronic illnesses, and at which attendance rates on first and subsequent appointments were substantially higher than at the hospital clinics. The hospital crisis-intervention clinic dealt particularly with acute psychosis and personality disorder. Patients referred to the traditional hospital out-patient service were those with the less common neuroses and personality disorder. These results are reviewed in the context of the criticism that psychiatric clinics in primary care serve only the "worried well".