PARASUICIDE AND GENERAL-PRACTICE - A PILOT-STUDY

General Practitioners from Cork City and its environs mere sent a ques tionnaire regarding their experience of parasuicide in the previous tw elve months, Replies were received from 133 of the 185 GPs., 189 indiv iduals, accounting for 212 episodes of parasuicide, were seen by 78 do ctors, indicating a lower level of repetition than that found in hospi tal-referred cases, Almost a third of doctors saw no cases, just over one fifth saw one episode and the same proportion dealt with two, A sm all number of general practitioners saw many cases, Regarding manageme nt, 128 (60%) were referred to Casualty, 31 of whom were also referred for psychiatric care, Thirty percent were referred directly for psych iatric care, While only fourteen were retained within general practice without referral, 40% of the GPs felt that, ideally, acts of parasuic ide should be retained with more specialised advice being obtained, Fu rthermore, 88.1% believed that management of parasuicide should form p art of an integral part of post-graduate or continued general practiti oner medical training, Clearly GPs are willing to play a more active r ole in the management of parasuicide.