ArticleBMJ open2020
Recognition of anxiety disorders in children: a cross-sectional vignette-based survey among general practitioners.
Article in BMJ open, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- General practitioners' clinical decision-making in patients that could have cancer: a vignette study comparing the Baltic states with four Nordic countries.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2025Article
- Mental health literacy among primary care providers in Hungary: a vignette-based survey.Annals of general psychiatry · 2025Article
- Informative value of referral letters from general practice for child and adolescent mental healthcare.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2023Article
- GPs' and practice nurses' views on their management of paediatric anxiety problems: an interview study.BMC primary care · 2022Article
- Article
- ENIGMA-anxiety working group: Rationale for and organization of large-scale neuroimaging studies of anxiety disorders.Human brain mapping · 2022Review
- Primary care practitioners' diagnostic action when the patient may have cancer: an exploratory vignette study in 20 European countries.BMJ open · 2020Article
- Large language models outperform general practitioners in identifying complex cases of childhood anxiety.Digital healthArticle
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo quantify general practitioners' (GPs) sensitivity to anxiety disorders (ADs) when confronted with the range of symptoms common to children with ADs. Also, to explore GPs' conscious preferences and implicit tendencies for referral of children with ADs to mental healthcare. DESIGN AND
settingIn a cross-sectional vignette-based survey, all attendees of a Dutch continuing medical education conference for primary care physicians were presented with subtitled audio fragments of five vignettes that we constructed to mimic symptom presentation of children with ADs in general practice. We asked attendees to select per vignette the most plausible diagnoses and most adequate referral option, and for their general referral preferences when they suspect each of the most common mental health problems.
participantsA sample of 229 GPs, resulting in a total of 1128 vignette evaluations.
main outcome measureGPs' selection rate of ADs in the five vignettes compared with a benchmark provided by mental health professionals (MHPs).
resultsOverall, recognition of ADs was less likely in GPs compared with MHPs (OR=0.26, 95% CI 0.15 to 0.46). GPs varied in their recognition of anxiety, with 44.1% not once selecting anxiety as the probable presenting problem. When asked explicitly, 63.9% of the GPs reported that they would refer a child to mental healthcare when they suspect probable ADs. By contrast, only 12.0% of the GPs who recognised anxiety in the vignettes actually selected that referral option.
conclusionA significant fraction of GPs did not notice the depicted symptoms as anxiety. Despite the widespread prevalence of ADs, GPs seem to overlook anxiety already in their early diagnostic opinion. Improving GPs' familiarity with initial symptom presentation, ADs' base-rate, relevance and impact yields potential for timely recognition.
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