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Working Together For Mental Health: Evaluation Of A One-Day Mental Health Course For Human Service Providers, Pamela E. Grootemaat, Cathie Gillan, Gillian Holt, Wayne Forward, Narelle Heywood, Sue Willis

Sydney Business School - Papers

Background: The Working Together For Mental Health course is an 8-hour course designed to demystify mental illness and mental health services. The main target group for the course is people working in human service organisations who provide services for people with mental illness. Methods: A questionnaire was administered to all participants attending the course during 2003 (n = 165). Participants completed the questionnaire before and immediately after the course, and at three month follow-up. Results: A response rate of 69% was achieved with 114 people completing the questionnaire on all three occasions. The responses showed a significant …

Why 'Primary Care' Patients Go To Emergency Departments: Demographic Profile And Reasons For Presentation, Peter M. Siminski, Andrew J. Bezzina, Kathy Eagar

Sydney Business School - Papers

This paper investigates why (potential) primary care patients attend an ED rather than a GP. An understanding of why patients make decisions such as this is critical if the health system is to be better positioned to meet the increasing demand for improved services and outcomes.

We found that the rate of potential primary care presentations varies greatly by age and by sex and that the pattern of primary care presentations is different to that of other ED presentations. In relation to reasons, we found that, regardless of age or sex, the top three reasons were self-assessed urgency; being able …