RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access

A new approach to child mental healthcare within general practice Peter FM Verhaak1,2*, Marloes van Dijk1, Dick Walstock3 and Marieke Zwaanswijk1 Background: Child and adolescent mental health problems are frequently not identified and properly treated within general practice. Politicians in the Netherlands are promoting more primary healthcare treatment for mental health problems. The current study aims to evaluate an integrated primary mental healthcare approach for child and adolescent emotional and behavioural problems. This integrated approach allows general practitioners (GPs) to comprehensively explore the request for help, followed by an informed decision to refer, offer short-term treatment within general practice or postpone a decision by asking for additional consultations with youth mental health specialists. Method: The study is a naturalistic evaluation of Dutch general practices with pre-test and post-test comparison with controls based on data from Electronic Medical Records (EMR). The intervention started in September 2010. EMR data of all GP contacts with children aged 4 to 18 (including diagnosis, prescriptions, referrals) from practices involved in the intervention was used from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2012. Extra codes were added to th