ArticleThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2000
The evaluation of a mental health facilitator in general practice: effects on recognition, management, and outcome of mental illness.
Article in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2000. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Interprofessional education: effects on professional practice and healthcare outcomes (update).The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2013Pooled it
- Primary care mental health workers: models of working and evidence of effectiveness.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2002Pooled it
- Systematic review and meta-analysis of practice facilitation within primary care settings.Annals of family medicinePooled it
- Effectiveness of teaching general practitioners skills in brief cognitive behaviour therapy to treat patients with depression: randomised controlled trial.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2002Trial
- Beyond psychiatry placements: advancing universal mental health competency across foundation training.BJPsych bulletin · 2025Article
- The new Foundation Programme Mental Health Curriculum: foundation doctors' perceptions of its importance and their competency: pre-post psychiatric placement evaluation study.BJPsych bulletin · 2025Article
- Mixed method evaluation of Relational Team Development (RELATED) to improve team-based care for complex patients with mental illness in primary care.BMC psychiatry · 2019Article
- Designing the relational team development intervention to improve management of mental health in primary care using iterative stakeholder engagement.BMC family practice · 2019Article
- Facilitation roles and characteristics associated with research use by healthcare professionals: a scoping review.BMJ open · 2017Article
- Why (we think) facilitation works: insights from organizational learning theory.Implementation science : IS · 2015Article
- Short structured general mental health in service training programme in Kenya improves patient health and social outcomes but not detection of mental health problems - a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial.International journal of mental health systems · 2013Article
- Improving the detection and management of depression in primary care.Quality & safety in health care · 2003Review
- Quality improvement report: Effect of a multifaceted approach to detecting and managing depression in primary care.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2002Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundFacilitation uses personal contact between the facilitator and the professional to encourage good practice and better service organisation. The model has been applied to physical illness but not to psychiatric disorders.
aimTo determine if a non-specialist facilitator can improve the recognition, management, and outcome of psychiatric illness presenting to general practitioners (GPs).
methodSix practices were visited over an 18-month period by a facilitator whose activities included providing guidelines and organising training initiatives. Six other practices acted as controls. Recognition (identification index of family doctors), management (psychotropic prescribing, psychological consultations with the GP, specialist mental health treatment, and the use of medical interventions and investigations), and patient outcome at four months were assessed before and after intervention.
resultsThe mean identification index of facilitator GPs rose from 0.51 to 0.64 following intervention, while that of the control GPs fell from 0.67 to 0.59 (P = 0.046). The facilitator had no detectable effect on management or patient outcome.
conclusionsThe facilitator improved recognition of psychiatric illness by GPs. Generic facilitators can be trained to take on a mental health role; however, the failure to achieve more fundamental changes in treatment and outcome implies that facilitator intervention requires development.
Indexed as
Identifiers
11042913PMC1313772What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.