First year of practice visits for the Rural Depression Anxiety Research and Treatment General Practice Program

Objective: To describe the first 12 months activities of a key component of a General Practice Psychiatry program ' the GP practice visit.Design: Questionnaire to evaluate effects on participating general practitioners practice.Setting: Rural group general practices.Subjects: Thirty-two general practitioners in the Loddon Campaspe Southern Mallee region in Victoria.Interventions: Practice visits involved a combination of each of three key activities: primary consultation, secondary consultation and/or case discussion and formal teaching.Results: General practitioners reported a variety of changes in their practice as a result of the visits.Conclusion: Practice visits appear to be a useful means of influencing GP's practice. Further work is required to determine whether such changes are accompanied by demonstrable benefits in patient outcome.What is already known: Several models to assist GPs effectively manage mental health problems have been described. These models require regular contact and so have had limited utility in rural settings.What this study adds: This study suggests that infrequent contact or input, based on well established models, can alter GP's clinical behaviour.