In his provocative Comment (Aug 22, p 589), PeterTyrer cites our paper and argues that "benefit seemed to accrue from a fairly simple intervention: the administration of a short questionnaire". This is an important error: the questionnaire was merely a screening device used to identify patients with hidden psychiatric disorders. Those identified went on to be randomly assigned intervention-even if this was merely a discussion of the patient's current life problems-or no intervention. What helped patients was therefore the general practitioner (GP), notthe questionnaire.
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