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Unnrecognized Mental Illness in Primary CareAnother Day and Another Duty in the Life of a Primary Care Physician
Michael Glasser, PhD;
Jeffrey A. Stearns, MD
Arch Fam Med. 1994;3(10):862-864.
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THE OVERWHELMING conclusion about the recognition of mental illness in patients in primary care settings is that such conditions and problems are not recognized. Therefore, they go untreated by primary care physicians. In this issue of the ARCHIVES, on the basis of a very extensive review of the literature, Higgins1 concludes that (1) there is a high prevalence of unrecognized mental illness in primary care; (2) controlled studies show improvement in the recognition and treatment of mental illness by primary care physicians; and (3) there is no apparent effect of improved physician recognition of mental illness on the patient's clinical course.
Higgins1 does a very admirable job of organizing, presenting, and discussing the implications of an issue that has been debated in the literature for over 25 years. However, one needs to examine his work and interpret his findings with caution. First, little is said about how the
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
Author Affiliations
University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford, Ill
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