↓ Skip to main content

Implementing a Psychotherapy Service for Medically Unexplained Symptoms in a Primary Care Setting

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of Clinical Medicine, November 2017
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (88th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (87th percentile)

Mentioned by

twitter
14 X users
facebook
2 Facebook pages
wikipedia
2 Wikipedia pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
13 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
58 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Implementing a Psychotherapy Service for Medically Unexplained Symptoms in a Primary Care Setting
Published in
Journal of Clinical Medicine, November 2017
DOI 10.3390/jcm6120109
Pubmed ID
Authors

Angela Cooper, Allan Abbass, Joanna Zed, Lisa Bedford, Tara Sampalli, Joel Town

Abstract

Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are known to be costly, complex to manage and inadequately addressed in primary care settings. In many cases, there are unresolved psychological and emotional processes underlying these symptoms, leaving traditional medical approaches insufficient. This paper details the implementation of an evidence-based, emotion-focused psychotherapy service for MUS across two family medicine clinics. The theory and evidence-base for using Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) with MUS is presented along with the key service components of assessment, treatment, education and research. Preliminary outcome indicators showed diverse benefits. Patients reported significantly decreased somatic symptoms in the Patient Health Questionnaire-15 (d = 0.4). A statistically significant (23%) decrease in family physicians' visits was found in the 6 months after attending the MUS service compared to the 6 months prior. Both patients and primary care clinicians reported a high degree of satisfaction with the service. Whilst further research is needed, these findings suggest that a direct psychology service maintained within the family practice clinic may assist patient and clinician function while reducing healthcare utilization. Challenges and further service developments are discussed, including the potential benefits of re-branding the service to become a 'Primary Care Psychological Consultation and Treatment Service'.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 14 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 58 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 58 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 10 17%
Student > Ph. D. Student 8 14%
Student > Bachelor 6 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 5 9%
Researcher 4 7%
Other 5 9%
Unknown 20 34%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 17 29%
Medicine and Dentistry 4 7%
Nursing and Health Professions 4 7%
Business, Management and Accounting 2 3%
Arts and Humanities 2 3%
Other 7 12%
Unknown 22 38%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 April 2020.
All research outputs
#2,112,532
of 23,009,818 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Clinical Medicine
#890
of 12,234 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#50,004
of 438,545 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Clinical Medicine
#4
of 31 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,009,818 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 12,234 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 438,545 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 31 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its contemporaries.