First Consultation for Low Mood in General Practice
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The First Consultation for Low Mood in General Practice: What do patients find helpful?
IRAS ID
169697
Contact name
Ian Morgan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Northumberland Tyne & Wear NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
Many people with low mood will present to their GP as their first point of professional contact. Current guidelines do not consider that this consultation is likely to have any therapeutic benefit. However, we believe that patients do often find that they feel better after their first visit to the GP.
Using a patient questionnaire of our own design, we will ask patients directly and individually whether that first visit to the doctor has made them feel any better or not. If so, we will ask which particular parts of that consultation were helpful.
To achieve this we will ask GPs to identify patients aged 18-65 who have recently seen them for the first time for low mood or depression. The GP will seek consent for the investigators to write to the patient with full details of the study (in a patient information sheet) and a copy of the questionnaire.
We hope to receive 20-30 completed questionnaires. The patient is entirely free to decide whether or not to complete and return the questionnaire - this will not in any way influence the patient’s management with their GP.
The results from the questionnaires will be anonymous. We will identify the most common and/or important outcomes (using simple descriptive statistics and a technique called thematic analysis).
If this small study is successful we would like to replicate it on a larger scale. We hope the results could be used in future to determine the best structure or format for these types of consultations and so help other patients with the same types of problem or condition.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Bradford Leeds Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/YH/0327
Date of REC Opinion
5 Aug 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion