General practitioners' self-perceived ability to recognize severity of common mental disorders: an underestimated factor in case identification?

2006

General Practitioners' Ability to Recognize Mental Disorders

Sample size: 724 publication Evidence: moderate

Author Information

Author(s): Ingrid Olssøn, Arnstein Mykletun, Alv A Dahl

Primary Institution: Department of Psychiatry, Innlandet Hospital Trust

GPs' observed ability to recognize severity would be positively associated with their perceived ability.

The study found a discrepancy between GPs' perceived and observed ability to recognize common mental disorders.

22 GPs perceived their ability to recognize MDE as rather good.
The observed ability to recognize severity for MDE was 0.63.
There was no significant association between perceived and observed abilities for MDE or GAD.

Doctors think they are good at spotting mental health issues, but they often aren't as good as they believe.

Cross-sectional study involving 40 Norwegian GPs who assessed 724 patients.

Potential selection bias due to recruitment by a pharmaceutical company.

The scale measuring GPs' self-perceived ability had not been psychometrically tested.

40 GPs (30 men, 10 women) with a mean age of 45; 724 patients (37% men, 63% women) with a mean age of 47.

p = 0.19 for MDE, p = 0.34 for GAD

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