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Pre-registration house officers' psychiatric knowledge in practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Chris Williams*
Affiliation:
Level 5 CSB, St. James's University Hospital, Beckett Street, Leeds LS9 7TF
Simon Wilson
Affiliation:
High Royds Hospital, Menston, Ilkley, LS29 6AQ
*
Correspondence
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Abstract

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Psychiatric distress is commonly found in general hospital patients and is associated with a poorer outcome and increased complexity of care. It is important for non-psychiatric hospital doctors to possess skills of assessment and treatment of common psychiatric problems. This survey of all house officers in their first pre-registration posts in three large teaching hospitals found that Junior doctors rarely ask about or consider the presence of psychiatric problems in their patients. Where psychiatric problems are found, house officers often feel they lack the appropriate skills of assessment and management. This has important implications for medical school course content and emphasis.

Type
Original Papers
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, 1996

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