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Can psychiatrists predict which new referrals will fail to attend?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2021

Jonathan P. Woods*
Affiliation:
Gartnavel Royal Hospital, 1055 Great Western Road, Glasgow, G12 0XH
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It is not uncommon to hear a psychiatrist claim to be able to judge from general practitioners' letters which new referrals will attend and which will fail to turn up. However operational research has failed to define clear characteristics of patients who do not keep first appointments (Hillis and Alexander, 1990; Skuse, 1975; Zegleman, 1988). Also the standard of referral letters has been criticised in the past and shown more recently to omit key items of information (Pullen & Yellowlees, 1985). The aim of this study is to test the ability of psychiatrists of varying experience to predict non-attenders.

Type
Original Articles
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1992

References

Creed, F. et al (1990) General practitioner referral rates to district psychiatry and psychology services. British Journal of General Practice, 40, 450454.Google ScholarPubMed
Hillis, G. & Alexander, D. A. (1990) Rejection of psychiatric treatment. Psychiatric Bulletin, 14, 147149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pullen, I. M. & Yellowlees, A. J. (1985) Is communication improving between general practitioners and psychiatrists? British Medical Journal, 290, 3133.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Skuse, D. (1975) Attitudes to the psychiatric outpatient clinic. British Medical Journal, 3, 469471.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zegleman, F. E. (1988) Psychiatric clinics in different settings – default rates. Health Bulletin, 46, 286290.Google ScholarPubMed
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