Search

Objective: To describe a joint mental health project involving the Adelaide Northern Division of General Practice (ANDGP) and the North West Adelaide Mental Health Service (NWAMHS). Conclusions: This project has been developed to explore alternative strategies to facilitate the identification and management of patients with mental illness in the primary care setting. The project has also endeavoured to explore alternative types of psychiatrist/general practitioner interactions other than the conventional ‘general practitioner referred psychiatrist consultation’. The development of adequate and clinically relevant evaluation methods, both quantitative and qualitative, has also been an explicit objective of the project. While the project provides an exciting stimulus for ongoing development of models of Primary Psychiatric Care, it is evident that such models can only evolve in the context of significant service and systemic change. It is hoped that the experiences in the northern suburbs of Adelaide can stimulate others to explore the ongoing collaborations between psychiatric services and general practitioners in ways that can produce better mental health outcomes in our patients.

A new community mental health service, the Mobile Assertive Care (MAC) team, offering intensive community based treatment for people with severe and persistent mental illnesses was evaluated twelve months after its commencement. Of the sixty-three clients referred within the first twelve months of operation, twelve-monthly outcome data was available for 54 clients at the time of this study. Results indicated clinically significant reductions in days spent in hospital, and statistically significant improvements in clinical and functional status.