Psychiatric morbidity in patients referred for individual psychotherapy within and outwith the NHS

Abstract

Aims and methodDemographic and medical characteristics of waiting list patients for National Health Service (NHS) psychotherapy, non-NHS psychotherapy or NHS general adult psychiatry were compared by postal questionnaires.ResultsOne hundred and eighty-three subjects replied. High rates of psychiatric morbidity were reported in both psychotherapy populations but general psychiatric referrals were more disturbed, taking more psychotropic medication than non-NHS psychotherapy but not NHS psychotherapy subjects. The biggest referral source to non-NHS psychotherapy was general practitioners.Clinical implicationsNon-NHS psychotherapists should be able to recognise severe mental illness and have a basic understanding of psychotropic medication and psychiatric services.

Psychiatric morbidity and treatment pathway outcomes of patients presenting to specialist NHS psychodynamic psychotherapy services: Results from a multi‐centre study

“…Information about the nature and severity of problems would help service planning and needs assessment procedures. Large scale surveys of secondary care users have been carried out (Barkham, Gilbert, Connell, Marshall, & Twigg, 2005; Barkham et al , 2001), but only a few published district‐based reports (Amies, 1996; Mitchell & Freeman, 1999) on psychotherapy users are available. These surveys found that psychotherapy patients show high levels of psychiatric morbidity and symptom distress, and meet criteria for a high number of personality disorder diagnoses.…”

Differences in clinical characteristics between patients assessed for NHS specialist psychotherapy and primary care counselling

“…Past reviews have emphasized the relative paucity of socio‐demographic and clinical information available concerning the patient populations which are referred for psychological treatments within NHS psychotherapy and counselling services in the UK (Parry & Richardson, 1996; Roth & Fonagy, 2005). A handful of district‐based reports have been published describing samples seen at NHS psychotherapy clinics, comparing them to secondary care outpatients (Amies, 1996) or to a non‐NHS psychotherapy population (Mitchell & Freeman, 1999). These surveys show that the levels of psychiatric morbidity, symptom distress, and personality disorder diagnoses, are comparably high in both the NHS psychotherapy samples and general psychiatric outpatients.…”