Viewing psychosocial symptoms more seriously with treatment: improved definition or less optimisim?

Abstract

If psychiatric patents perceive 'psychosocial' symptoms as more urgent than do other patients, two plausible explanations are an improved understanding of symptoms of mental illness or a decrease in unrealistic optimism. In this study, psychiatric outpatients and general practice patients rated a variety of medical symptoms on the urgency with which they would seek medical advice for each, while psychiatrists rated each on the urgency with which a patient should seek medical advice. The pattern of observed differences favoured the improved definition explanation over decreased optimism. Psychiatric patients' definition of mental health problems was closer to that of the treatment providers.