Primary care is usually the first port of call for people with mental health problems and plays an increasingly important role in developing and delivering mental health services. Indeed, 90 per cent of all patients with mental health problems (including 30-50 per cent of all those with serious mental illness) only use primary care services. How can practitioners in primary care best respond to psychiatric presentations? In this book, internationally respected authors provide a conceptual background and dispense practical advice for the clinician. They discuss ways of improving joint working between primary and secondary care, as well as issues affecting the professional development of all practitioners within primary care teams. The key features include: practical advice; focus on improving services; critical analysis of the emerging evidence; a user-centred approach, emphasising recovery; and educational strategies to develop knowledge and skills of the primary care team.

Part I: Conceptual Basis and Overarching Themes

Chapter 1, What is Primary Care Mental Health?
Chapter 2, Mental Health and Primary Healthcare, an International Policy Perspective
Chapter 3, The Epidemiology of Mental Illness
Chapter 4, A Sociological View of Mental Health and Illness
Chapter 5, The Service User Perspective
Chapter 6, Low- and Middle-income Countries
Chapter 7, Diagnosis and Classifi Cation of Mental Illness, a View From Primary Care

Part II: Clinical Issues

Chapter 8, Depression
Chapter 9, Suicide and Self-harm
Chapter 10, Anxiety
Chapter 11, Medically Unexplained Symptoms
Chapter 12, Mental Health Problems in Older People
Chapter 13, Perinatal Mental Health
Chapter 14, Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Chapter 15, Psychosis
Chapter 16, Emergencies in Primary Care
Chapter 17, Substance Misuse
Chapter 18, Management of Alcohol Problems
Chapter 19, Eating Disorders
Chapter 20, Physical Health of People With Mental Illness
Chapter 21, Ethnic Minorities
Chapter 22, Asylum Seekers and Refugees
Chapter 23, Sexual Problems

Part III, Policy and Practice

Chapter 24, Mental Health Promotion
Chapter 25, Improving The Quality of Primary Care Mental Health, What Does and Does not Work?
Chapter 26, Psychological Treatments
Chapter 27, Collaborative Care and Stepped Care, Innovations for Common Mental Disorders
Chapter 28, The Role of Practice Nurses

Part IV, Reflective Practice

Chapter 29, Teaching and Learning About Mental Health
Chapter 30, Undertaking Mental Health Research in Primary Care
Chapter 31, Individual Treatment Decisions, Guidelines and Clinical Judgement
Chapter 32, Self and Others, The Mental Healthcare of The Practitioner. Epilogue, Racing Pigeons and Rolling Rocks, Reflections on Complex Problems in Primary Care.