Centre for Policy on Ageing



Psychiatric illness in the elderly — a comparison of GP records and survey findings
Author(s)	A A McKechnie, E M Foster, K Bergmann
Journal title	Gerontology, vol 24, part 4, 1978
Pages	pp 293-298
Keywords	Mental disorder ; Living in the community ; Diagnosis ; General practitioners ; Psychiatrists ; Evaluation ; Comparison.
Annotation	A study of GP (general practitioner) records estimating physical and psychiatric disabilities of 200 old people living at home were compared with those made independently by a psychiatrist interviewing subjects at home. There was a reasonable agreement between the two assessments of functional disorder and between the two assessments of physical disabilities. Whereas the survey psychiatrist's diagnosis of mental disorder correlated positively with the presence of physical illness, this did not hold for those considered to have evidence of psychiatric illness using GP records alone. The duration of a positive psychiatric history obtained from GP records was consistent with a discrimination between late onset (recent) and chronic neurosis. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-930727104
Classmark	E: K4: LK7: QT6: QT9: 4C: 48 *
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.