IS THERE A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A MOTHERS MENTAL STATE AND CONSULTINGTHE DOCTOR BY THE FAMILY - A STUDY IN A MILITARY GENERAL-PRACTICE

A total of 174 families of service personnel with children between 3 a nd 6 years of age were studied over a 6 month period. All contacts wit h the general practitioner, both in and out of hours together with the local casualty department were recorded. Mothers of the children were posted a specially designed questionnaire to measure how seriously th ey perceived various childhood symptoms to be and a copy of the genera l health questionnaire, 28 question version (GHQ 28). The perceived se verity questionnaire had been piloted previously in a neighbouring pra ctice. The overall response rate was 77%. Analyses of the data showed that the factors most significantly associated with a child's consulta tion frequency were the psychological state of the mother, the mother' s own consultation frequency and the number of children in the family; the last being an inverse relationship. No evidence was found to sugg est that the perception of the severity of illness Varied with the psy chological state of the mother. in addition, the childhood consultatio n rate was not influenced by the mother's perception of the severity o f childhood illness as measured by the perceived severity questionnair e. Other factors such as the age of the mother or child, within the ag e range studied, were not found to be significantly related to the chi ld's frequency of consulting. A mother's own consultation frequency wa s highly correlated with her GHQ 28 score, but more specifically with the subsections that scored for depression and somatic symptoms. From the study, doctors who see children should seriously consider the main reasons for a child's consultation. In particular, as mothers often m ake the decision as to whether their child should see the doctor, the main patient may be the parent not the child. Mothers who present them selves frequently may also have a high level of psychological distress .