The Effect of Multiphasic Screening on Aspects of Psychiatric Status in Middle Age: Results of a Controlled Trial in General Practice

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Abstract
The effects of a programme of multiphasic screening on the mental health of a middle-aged population were assessed as part of the evaluation of a controlled trial of multiphasic screening in two general practices in South London. 7229 individuals aged between 40 and 64 years were randomly allocated by family into either a Screening or Control group. The Screening group were invited to attend two screening sessions separated by about two years while the Control group continued to receive conventional medical care. Two years after the second screening session, both groups were invited to a health survey. In one of the practices, the survey included an assessment of psychoneurotic status using the Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire (MHQ). Careful follow-up in both practices permitted Screening-Control comparisons of several outcome measures of screening including general practice consultation rates and admissions to hospital. At the health survey, only the males in the Screening group displayed a significantly lower mean anxiety score than the males in the Control group (p<0.01); there were no significant differences in the mean scores of the two groups in any of the other five dimensions of the MHQ. During the first five years of the study, the mean annual consultation rate with general practitioners for mental disorders (l.C.D. Codes 125–150 inclusive) was similar in the Screening and Control groups with one exception: in one practice, the Screening group males had a significantly higher mean consultation rate than the Control group males. In that practice, however, the consultation rate of the Screening group was higher than that of the Control group for all disorders, mental and otherwise. Interpretation of hospital admission date was difficult owing to the small number involved but there did not appear to be any important differences between the two groups. It is concluded that these results, taken as a whole, suggest that multiphasic screening has played little or no part in either the generation or alleviation of neurotic illness in a population of middle-aged individuals.

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