ABSTRACT
Emotional disorder in the survey sample was found to be related to a high demand for medical care. Those patients identified as suffering from psychiatric illness attended more frequently and exhibited higher rates of general morbidity and more categories of illness per head than the remainder of the patients consulting their doctors. The need for a random sample of the general population was obvious and critical. Psychosocial factors influence illness presentation. It is quite clear that the epidemiological work in primary care carried out by Michael Shepherd and his group was seminal and heralded important work in that sphere. It pinpointed that the prevalence of psychiatric disorder in the community was considerable, that such disorders were largely managed by the general practitioner, and that they tended to be associated with physical illness and social difficulties. In the St Paul’s Cray study, when every effort was made to exclude diagnostic, method, and sampling problems, physical and mental disorder were significantly related.
