ArticleThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2010
Can a self-referral system help improve access to psychological treatments?
Article in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
- The association between depressive symptoms in the community, non-psychiatric hospital admission and hospital outcomes: a systematic review.Journal of psychosomatic research · 2015Pooled it
- Trial
- Trial
- Community-based group guided self-help intervention for low mood and stress: randomised controlled trial.The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science · 2018Trial
- Evaluation and adaptation of the Seamless Care Optimizing the Patient Experience Mental Health program.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2026Article
- LGBTQ+ experiences of accessing NHS adult mental health services during COVID-19 in an area of North West England: a qualitative interview study.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Qualitative Process Evaluation of a School-Based Group Intervention (DISCOVER) for Depression and Anxiety for Older Adolescents.Journal of adolescence · 2026Article
- A pre-treatment comparison of referral pathways to guided ICBT for depression and anxiety disorders - A naturalistic study in routine clinical care.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Article
- Consumer Experiences of the Australian Stepped Care Model in Primary Mental Health Care: A Qualitative Study.International journal of mental health nursing · 2025Article
- Effectiveness of General Practitioner Referral Versus Self-Referral Pathways to Guided Internet-Delivered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression, Panic Disorder, and Social Anxiety Disorder: Naturalistic Study.JMIR mental health · 2025Article
- Closing the accessibility gap to mental health treatment with a personalized self-referral chatbot.Nature medicine · 2024Observational
- Comparing treatment delays and pathways to early intervention services for psychosis in urban settings in India and Canada.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2023Article
- Therapist perceptions of the implementation of a new screening procedure using the ItFits-toolkit in an iCBT routine care clinic: A mixed-methods study using the consolidated framework for implementation research.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- Article
- How Can We Actually Change Help-Seeking Behaviour for Mental Health Problems among the General Public? Development of the 'PLACES' Model.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Evaluating the Change Process of a Brief Cognitive Behavior Therapy Workshop for Psychological Distress Among Primary Care Self-Referrals in Selangor, Malaysia.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- A Mental Health Drop-In Centre Offering Brief Transdiagnostic Psychological Assessment and Treatment in a Paediatric Hospital Setting: A One-Year Descriptive Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Can a Community-Led Intervention Offering Social Support and Health Education Improve Maternal Health? A Repeated Measures Evaluation of the PACT Project Run in a Socially Deprived London Borough.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Youth Experiences With Referrals to Mental Health Services in Canada: Protocol for a Web-Based Cross-Sectional Survey Study.JMIR research protocols · 2020Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Referrals for psychological treatment have been problematic for many years. Even though GPs have attempted to limit access into the small psychological treatment services, long waiting lists have developed which have deterred referrals and deferred psychological care. GPs have understandably been frustrated. In addition, the consultation rate for psychological problems is low when compared with the rate of identified mental health problems in population surveys. Possible reasons include patients' failure to recognise the problem as psychological and thus not consulting one's GP, and/or the problem not being detected by the GP. While a self-referral system may be seen as a way of trying to allow non-consulters to receive treatment, this has been viewed with some scepticism since it may allow the 'worried well' to access already limited services. However, a study has shown that those self-referring to advertised psychological workshops had high levels of psychological morbidity and also were more representative of the population, in terms of ethnicity, than GP referrals. The government has set up the Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme to address some of the service shortfalls by expanding the provision of psychological therapists. Notably, the IAPT programme is allowing self-referrals such that any member of the public can access the service directly, bypassing general practice. Although not available at all the sites, this represents a radical shift from the present system in which access to talking therapy is generally only available through direct referral by the GP. The implications of this new development are discussed.
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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.