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Prevalence of persons contacting general practice for psychological stress in Denmark

Objective: The prevalence of psychological stress has previously been estimated based on self-reported questionnaires. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of persons who contact the general practitioner (GP) for psychological stress and to explore associations between psychological stress...

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Autores principales: Lykkegaard, Jesper, Rosendal, Marianne, Brask, Karen, Brandt, Lars, Prior, Anders
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Taylor & Francis 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6381526/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30175651
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02813432.2018.1499494
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author Lykkegaard, Jesper
Rosendal, Marianne
Brask, Karen
Brandt, Lars
Prior, Anders
author_facet Lykkegaard, Jesper
Rosendal, Marianne
Brask, Karen
Brandt, Lars
Prior, Anders
author_sort Lykkegaard, Jesper
collection PubMed
description Objective: The prevalence of psychological stress has previously been estimated based on self-reported questionnaires. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of persons who contact the general practitioner (GP) for psychological stress and to explore associations between psychological stress and characteristics relating to the patient, the GP, and area-specific socioeconomic factors. Design: Cross-sectional computer assisted journal audit. Setting: General practice in the Region of Southern Denmark. Subjects: Patients aged 18–65 years with a consultation during a six-month period that was classified with a stress-related diagnosis code. Main outcome measures: Six months prevalence of GP-assessed psychological stress and characteristics relating to the patient, the GP, and area-specific socioeconomic factors. Results: Fifty-six GPs (7% of the invited) identified 1066 patients considered to have psychological stress among 51,422 listed patients. Accordingly, a 2.1% six months prevalence of psychological stress was estimated; 69% of cases were women. High prevalence of psychological stress was associated with female sex, age 35–54 years, high education level and low population density in the municipality, but not with unemployment in the municipality or household income in the postal district. GP female sex and age <50 years, few GPs in the practice and few patients per GP were also associated with a higher prevalence of psychological stress. Conclusions: KEY POINTS:   Psychological stress is a leading cause of days on sick leave, but its prevalence has been based on population surveys rather than on assessment by health care professionals.   • This study found that during six months 2.1% of all working-age persons have at least one contact with the GP regarding psychological stress.   • The six months prevalence of psychological stress was associated with patient age and sex, GP age and sex, practices’ number of GPs and patients per GP, and area education and urbanization level. .
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spelling pubmed-63815262019-03-04 Prevalence of persons contacting general practice for psychological stress in Denmark Lykkegaard, Jesper Rosendal, Marianne Brask, Karen Brandt, Lars Prior, Anders Scand J Prim Health Care Research Article Objective: The prevalence of psychological stress has previously been estimated based on self-reported questionnaires. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of persons who contact the general practitioner (GP) for psychological stress and to explore associations between psychological stress and characteristics relating to the patient, the GP, and area-specific socioeconomic factors. Design: Cross-sectional computer assisted journal audit. Setting: General practice in the Region of Southern Denmark. Subjects: Patients aged 18–65 years with a consultation during a six-month period that was classified with a stress-related diagnosis code. Main outcome measures: Six months prevalence of GP-assessed psychological stress and characteristics relating to the patient, the GP, and area-specific socioeconomic factors. Results: Fifty-six GPs (7% of the invited) identified 1066 patients considered to have psychological stress among 51,422 listed patients. Accordingly, a 2.1% six months prevalence of psychological stress was estimated; 69% of cases were women. High prevalence of psychological stress was associated with female sex, age 35–54 years, high education level and low population density in the municipality, but not with unemployment in the municipality or household income in the postal district. GP female sex and age <50 years, few GPs in the practice and few patients per GP were also associated with a higher prevalence of psychological stress. Conclusions: KEY POINTS:   Psychological stress is a leading cause of days on sick leave, but its prevalence has been based on population surveys rather than on assessment by health care professionals.   • This study found that during six months 2.1% of all working-age persons have at least one contact with the GP regarding psychological stress.   • The six months prevalence of psychological stress was associated with patient age and sex, GP age and sex, practices’ number of GPs and patients per GP, and area education and urbanization level. . Taylor & Francis 2018-09-03 /pmc/articles/PMC6381526/ /pubmed/30175651 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02813432.2018.1499494 Text en © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Lykkegaard, Jesper
Rosendal, Marianne
Brask, Karen
Brandt, Lars
Prior, Anders
Prevalence of persons contacting general practice for psychological stress in Denmark
title Prevalence of persons contacting general practice for psychological stress in Denmark
title_full Prevalence of persons contacting general practice for psychological stress in Denmark
title_fullStr Prevalence of persons contacting general practice for psychological stress in Denmark
title_full_unstemmed Prevalence of persons contacting general practice for psychological stress in Denmark
title_short Prevalence of persons contacting general practice for psychological stress in Denmark
title_sort prevalence of persons contacting general practice for psychological stress in denmark
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6381526/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30175651
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02813432.2018.1499494
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