Improving GPs' skills and competencies in child psychiatry.

Concerned at the poor availability of psychiatric services for children and adolescents, the Finnish Parliament allocated extra funds for their development during 2000 and 2001. With this subsidy, a project was set underway to update general practitioners' (GPs') skills and knowledge in child psychiatry. The problem-based learning (PBL) method was used, combined with multidisciplinary teamwork.

Improving health centre physicians' child-psychiatric networks.

Objective: To study changes in Finnish GPs' child-psychiatric networks over a one-year period.

Design: Postal questionnaire.

Setting: Health centres in the area of Tampere University Hospital with a catchment population of one million.

Child psychiatric networks of health centre doctors.

Objective: To ascertain the personal networks GPs use when managing children with psychiatric problems.

Design: Cross-sectional postal study.

Setting: Health centres in the catchment area of Tampere University Hospital, Finland.