Psychiatric Morbidity in a London General Practice

This paper presents an account of morbidity in a suburban practice in London with special reference to psychiatric disability. Clinical and administrative features of this practice (Chalke and Fisher, 1957) and its social and demographic characteristics (Stein, 1960) have also been described, and an outline of the present investigation has been presented elsewhere (Shepherd, Fisher, Stein, and Kessel, 1959). All registered National Health Service patients aged 15 years or over whose surnames began with four randomly chosen letters (A, B, U, V) were surveyed for one year (March, 1956, to February, 1957). These 911 adults represent about 10 per cent, of the practice and are all included in the 20 per cent, sample described by Stein (1960).