background Our study was motivated mainly by the results from nemesis-2 which showed that four out of ten patients in ambulantory mental health care had not had any mental disorder in the previous 12 months. A dsm-iv classification of the symptoms of patients is required for receiving insured mental health care.
aim To find out whether patients who attended a mental health generalistic or specialised clinic had a dsm-classified mental disorder and to assess the severity of these patients’ symptoms. We have given specific attention to the characteristics of patients with subclinical symptoms who turned up at the mental health care clinics.
method dsm-iv disorders of patients in mental health care were studied by means of the mini 5.0.0 (n = 3072). The oq-45 was used to determine the severity of symptoms in both generalistic (n = 2255) and specialised mental health care (n = 5009). Logistical regression was used to determine the differences between the characteristics of patients who had clinical scores and those of patients who had subclinical scores. For this purpose we also used anonymised data from the personal health records.
results During the intake procedure at specialised mental health care clinics only 14.3 % of patients failed to meet the diagnostic criteria of a dsm-iv disorder. Also, 56.5 % of patients seen by a mental health generalist and 70,9 % of patients seen by a mental health specialist had high or very high symptomatic distress, according the oq-45. The proportion of patients with a dsm-iv disorder varied from 52.9 % for patients with subclinical oq-45 scores to 94.8 % for patients with very high oq-45 scores. Predictors of patients with subclinical oq-45 scores were similar in generalistic and specialised mental health care.
conclusion Only a small number of patients in specialised care did not have an axis 1 dsm-iv diagnosis. Most patients in generalistic and specialised mental health care reported severe symptomatic distress. Symptoms mentioned by patients with subclinical oq-scores at the start of treatment were mainly stress-related.