BMJ 2008;336:471 (1 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.39503.346759.DB
News
A third of people held by police are not registered with a GP despite health problems
Roger Dobson
1 Abergavenny
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
People held in custody by the police in London have high levels of general health problems, and nearly a third are not registered with a GP, a new survey has shown.
The researchers found that just under a quarter of detainees had had previous major psychiatric or mental health problems, and 9% had been admitted informally to hospital or had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act (Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine doi: 10.1016/j.jflm.2007.10.011).
More than half the detainees had a medical condition. Three quarters of detainees with a medical condition had been prescribed a treatment—but only half of these people were taking the prescribed drugs. Conditions included asthma, epilepsy, diabetes, deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, hypertension, gastrointestinal disorder, hepatitis, and musculoskeletal problems.
The authors wrote, "It is clear that general health issues are a major concern for the detainee group studied. This study has also
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
This article
- Full text
- Respond to this article
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when responses are posted
- Alert me when a correction is posted
Services
- Email this article to a friend
- Find similar articles in BMJ
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Google Scholar
PubMed
Related content
Bookmark with
What's new
Student BMJ poll
Resources
Tools
Online poll
Services
Rapid responses for this article
There are no rapid responses for this article.Most read last week
Print issues
Student BMJ
Intimate examinations
Israeli students are refusing to perform intimate examinations on anaesthetised women without their informed consent.
