CO-PRESENCE GENERAL PRACTITIONER AND PSYCHOLOGIST: A WINNING SOLUTION IN PRIMARY CARE

Introduction and Objectives The requests submitted to the General Practitioner (GP) are often due to problems that need a holistic, biopsychosocial approach to be solved. The support of a psychologist to the GP allows a more complete response to the patient’s discomfort, also through the integration of the mutual competences, fostering the formative interchange between the two specialists. Method The experimental activity “Psychologist at the GP Practice” has taken place between January 2014 and December 2015, in Polcenigo (Pordenone) Italy. The psychologist was present in the GP practice every Thursday and the visits took place with the following procedure: - Psychological listening for each person calling to the GP practice. - Exploration of the significance of any request. - Psycological frameworking of the observed situations. - Exploratory intervention when needed. - Eventual further meeting on call with the psychologist in the GP practice. Results and Conclusions The majority of the patients accepted favorably the psychologist’s presence, showing to comprehend her specific role. The most frequent discomfort was the difficulty in the grieving process during separation issues. 30 patients (7 males, 23 females) took part in further individual meetings: 5 abandoned the project, 21 advantageously concluded the set of meetings, 4 were sent to a mental health facility. The joint medico-psychological action prevented, even at early stages, the appearance of somatic and psychic symptoms. This experimental activity has surely produced health and well-being and limited the expenses for medical prescriptions, diagnostic examinations and specialist medical examinations.