Effectiveness of Brief Psychological Intervention in Managing Common Mental Problems in General Practice

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to see the effectiveness of brief psychological intervention in managing common mental health problems in general practice. Quasi-experiment with two groups control design with a pretest and post-test measure conducted. 30 general practitioners, 15 each in experimental group and control group were involved in this study. Data collection from 30 General Practitioners practicing at Jalandhar city (Punjab, India) through evaluation of 3000 patients was conducted for the first phase. For second phase, 450 patients, 225 each in Pre and Post test design, was included to obtain data.To study the prevalence and severity of anxiety, depression and somatic symptom disorder, “12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12 scale) developed by Goldberg and Paul Williams, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-7 (GAD-7 scale) developed by Spitzer, Patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9 Scale) developed by Kroenke and Spitzer and ‘Patient Health Questionnaire-15 (PHQ-15 Scale) developed by Robert Spitzer, Janet Williams, and Kurt Kroenke” were put in use. Paired t test was performed to find out pre and post intervention differences. The results showed that brief psychological intervention had a significant effect as mean scores of anxiety, depression and somatic symptom disorder of experimental group differ significantly from the corresponding mean scores of control group after the intervention, indicating intervention has a significant effect in managing common mental health problems at general practice level.