Frequent attenders in primary care: Impact of medical, psychiatric and psychosomatic diagnoses

Abstract

Background: Anxiety, mild depression and somatization are common in primary care (PC). Several studies have suggested that they may play a role in causing an excessive use of health care services, especially when combined with medical morbidity. The present case-control study explored how psychiatric and psychosomatic diagnoses and perceived quality of life are associated with the phenomenon of frequent attendance. Method: Fifty most frequent attenders (FAs) in a 1-year period at a PC clinic in Italy were compared with 50 randomly selected average frequency attenders at the same clinic. Sociodemographic and medical data were collected from PC files. The SCID-brief version for research and th..