Anxiety about feel good factor

Nearly a third of GP practices offer patients counselling, but how effective is it?

GOOD counselling in general medical practice can more than halve the severity of patient anxiety, according to Bournemouth University researchers.

A team investigated counselling in Dorset, looking at the patients' quality of life and psychological symptoms before counselling, after three months, six months, one year and two years of their seeking help.

Emma Baker, research officer, said: "We found counselling makes a big difference in reducing different symptoms of anxiety and depression."

Patients in the survey were asked to reply "true" or "false" to a list of symptoms of anxiety.

The list included statements such as: recently I have been breathless and had a pounding in my heart; for no reason I have had feelings of panic; I have worried about every little thing; I have been so anxious that I couldn't make up my mind about a single thing; I have had a pain or tense feeling in my neck or head, and, worrying has kept me awake at night.

For every "true" statement, a patient was asked to assess the severity of the symptom on a scale of one to three.

Before receiving therapy, patients registered an average of 4.44 symptoms of anxiety out of a possible seven. The severity of these symptoms was rated at an average of eight out of 21.

These figures dropped over two years, eventually reaching two and three respectively two years after the onset of counselling.

Patients spent an average of three months in therapy and their counsellors were all "properly trained" and regularly supervised by a regional psychology service.

The research does not specify the exact nature of training nor the counselling techniques adopted.