Help-seeking pathways in early psychosis

Platz, Christoph; Umbricht, Daniel S; Cattapan-Ludewig, Katja; Dvorsky, Diane; Arbach, Dima; Brenner, Hans-Dieter; Simon, Andor E (2006). Help-seeking pathways in early psychosis. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 41(12), pp. 967-74. Berlin: Springer 10.1007/s00127-006-0117-4

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INTRODUCTION: Understanding the help-seeking pathways of patients with a putative risk of developing psychosis helps improving development of specialised care services. This study aimed at obtaining information about: type of health professionals contacted by patients at putative risk for psychosis on their help-seeking pathways; number of contacts; type of symptoms leading to contacts with health professionals; interval between initial contact and referral to a specialised outpatient service. METHOD: The help-seeking pathways were assessed as part of a prospective study in 104 patients with suspected at-risk states for psychosis. RESULTS: The mean number of contacts prior to referral was 2.38. Patients with psychotic symptoms more often contacted mental health professionals, whereas patients with insidious and more unspecific features more frequently contacted general practitioners (GPs). CONCLUSIONS: GPs have been found to under-identify the insidious features of emerging psychosis (Simon et al. (2005) Br J Psychiatry 187:274-281). The fact that they were most often contacted by patients with exactly these features calls for focussed and specialised help for primary care physicians. Thus, delays along the help-seeking pathways may be shortened. This may be of particular relevance for patients with the deficit syndrome of schizophrenia.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of Head Organs and Neurology (DKNS) > Clinic of Neurology > Centre of Competence for Psychosomatic Medicine
04 Faculty of Medicine > University Psychiatric Services > University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy > Psychotherapy

UniBE Contributor:

Cattapan-Ludewig, Katja, Brenner, Hans Dieter

ISSN:

0933-7954

ISBN:

17036265

Publisher:

Springer

Language:

English

Submitter:

Factscience Import

Date Deposited:

04 Oct 2013 14:47

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:14

Publisher DOI:

10.1007/s00127-006-0117-4

PubMed ID:

17036265

Web of Science ID:

000243326600006

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/19738

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/19738 (FactScience: 2671)

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