Comparison of help-seeking pattern for specific sources between respondents attending private and public primary care clinics.

<p>Comparison of help-seeking pattern for specific sources between respondents attending private and public primary care clinics.</p

Help-seeking behaviours for psychological distress amongst Chinese patients

<div><p>Background</p><p>The stepped care model for psychological distress has been promoted in recent years, leading to the enhancing roles of primary care professionals and alternative sources of help. However, most of the research findings come from Western countries. This study investigates help-seeking behaviours of Chinese patients among different types of professional and alternative sources for psychological distress in Hong Kong.</p><p>Methods</p><p>A questionnaire survey was conducted with 1626 adult primary care attenders from 13 private and 6 public clinics, 650 (40.0%) reported that they had ever experienced psychological distress. Their help-seeking behaviours, demographic background and current distress level (measured by GHQ-12) were analysed.</p><p>Results</p><p>Among the respondents with experience of psychological distress, 48.2% had sought help from professional and/or alternative sources for their distress [10.2% from professionals only, 12.6% from alternative sources only, and 25.4% from both]. Those who had sought help from professionals only were more likely to be less educated and with lower income. In contrast, those using alternative sources only were more likely to be younger, better educated, and have higher income. Allowing multiple responses, psychiatrists (22.3%) was reported to be the most popular professional source, followed by primary care physicians (17.5%), clinical psychologists (12.8%) and social workers/counsellors (12.0%). Family members/friends (28.6%) was the top alternative source, followed by exercise/sports (21.8%), religious/spiritual support (16.9%) and self-help websites/books/pamphlets (8.9%).</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>While psychiatrists remain the most popular professional source of help to the Chinese patients in Hong Kong, primary care professionals and alternative sources also play significant roles. Distressed patients who are younger, better educated and have higher income are more likely to use alternative sources only. The outcomes need further research.</p></div

Comparison of background characteristics among respondents who had sought help from professionals only, alternative sources only, or both.

<p>Comparison of background characteristics among respondents who had sought help from professionals only, alternative sources only, or both.</p

Comparison of the help-seeking pattern for specific sources between respondents attending private (N = 327) and public (N = 323) primary care clinics.

<p>Comparison of the help-seeking pattern for specific sources between respondents attending private (N = 327) and public (N = 323) primary care clinics.</p

Comparison of background characteristics between respondents with and without help-seeking experience for psychological distress.

<p>Comparison of background characteristics between respondents with and without help-seeking experience for psychological distress.</p

Additional file 1 of Optimizing the frequency of physician encounters in follow - up care for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a systematic review

Additional file 1: Supplementary Figure 1. Summary of risk of bias assessment for the included studies Randomized controlled trials (assessed by the Cochrane RoB2 tool). Supplementary Figure 2. Histogram plot for the findings in the sensitivity analysis after excluding the studies without specifying the type of diabetes1