TRAINING PRIMARY HEALTH-CARE PHYSICIANS IN SAUDI-ARABIA TO RECOGNIZE PSYCHIATRIC-ILLNESS

In order to evaluate the effect of training primary health care (PHC) physicians to recognize mental disorders, an intervention randomized c ontrolled trial was conducted. Three categories of PHC physicians were selected: the index group (n=12 doctors), control group 1 (n=12) and control group 2 (n=4). For 1 week randomly selected patients from all trial centres were asked to complete the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28), and the three groups of doctors were asked to identify the p resence of and rate the severity of any mental disorder in these patie nts. The same process was repeated for all three groups after a 6-mont h training course which was provided for the index group only The doct ors' ability to detect mental disorders was measured by calculating Sp earman's correlation coefficient between their severity rating and the GHQ scores of their patients. Training produced a noticeable improvem ent in the diagnostic accuracy of the index group, whereas there was m inimal improvement in control group 1 and deterioration in control gro up 2. Recommendations to improve the ability of PHC physicians to dete ct mental disorders are discussed.