ARE FREQUENT ATTENDERS OF PRIMARY HEALTH-CARE DISTRESSED

Objective - To measure the level of distress among frequent attenders of primary health care. Design - A cross-sectional study. Setting - Tw o public primary health care stations in Turku, south-western Finland Participants - 96 frequent attenders (eleven or more visits to a physi cian during the previous 12 months) and 466 control patients. Main out come measure - SCL-25, GP evaluations, self-reported symptoms and self -experienced need for care. Results - Frequent attenders were signific antly more distressed than other patients in primary care. However, th eir self-experienced need for psychiatric care was very low and it did not differ from other patients self-experienced need. The GPs estimat ed that over 1/3 of frequent attenders suffered from mixed (physical a nd psychiatric) illnesses and over 1/2 from subclinical or clinical ps ychiatric symptoms. The corresponding proportions for other patients w ere significantly lower.