Patients with somatoform disorders: More frequent attendance and higher utilization in primary Out-of-Hours care?

Background One significant health policy challenge in many European countries at present is developing strategies to deal with the increase in patient attendance at Out-of-Hours care (OOHC), whether this is at OOHC-Centres in primary care settings or hospital emergency departments (ED). FAs (FAs) presenting in OOHC are a known challenge and previous studies have shown that FAs present more often with psychological problems and psychiatric comorbidities rather than severe physical complaints. FAs may be also contributing to the rising workload in OOHC-Centres in primary care. The aim of this study was to determine attendance frequencies and health problem presentation patterns for patients with and without somatoform disorders (ICD-10 F45 diagnoses) in OOHC-Centres in primary care. Some of these somatoform disorders may have a psychiatric character. Moreover, we wanted to compare health care utilization patterns (pharmacotherapy and hospitalizations) between these patients groups.