Psychiatric Morbidity of West Indian Immigrants in an Urban Group Practice

Since 1948 a number of papers published in Great Britain have demonstrated the feasibility of studying the incidence and prevalence of both major and minor psychiatric disorders in general practice (3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18). Few, however, have focused on the health of West Indian immigrants in Great Britain, some 125,000 of whom have entered the country since that time (2, 12, 13, 20). This paper reports on the results of a six-month psychiatric morbidity survey of a group general practice in Brixton, the main purpose of which was to collect and compare data on the illness and consultation patterns of West Indian and English patients attending the same general practice.