Consultative psychiatry examinations of patients: Review of twelve months retrospective follow up

Abstract

Introduction. Psychiatric symptoms in hospitalized somatic patients are not rare in practice, and therefore consultative psychiatric examinations are an important part of the treatment of patients in non-psychiatric departments. The term consultative psychiatry refers to psychiatric evaluation, advising and treatment of numerous and various psychiatric disorders in physically ill patients in non-psychiatric departments. The aim of the research was to determine the wards at which psychiatric consultations were the most frequent as well as the prevalence of psychiatric disorders. Material and method. The research included 887 patients hospitalized at the clinics of the Clinical Centre Nis, examined by consultant psychiatrists during the twelve month period. The research instrument was medical documentation (files of psychiatrist-consultants after the completed consultation). Results and conclusion. The greatest number of psychiatric consultations was made at the Endocrinology Clinic, followed by the Neurology Clinic and the Surgery Clinic, and then at the Clinic for Cardiovascular Diseases. Most diagnoses were syndromological-descriptive, which entailed a relatively high percentage of multiple diagnoses. The most frequent diagnostic groups were chronic and acute psycho-organic syndromes, which cause a bad compliance and can lead to difficulties during somatic examination, intervention or pharmacological treatment. Immediately following are mental disorders due to the use of psychoactive substances, situational reactions and suicide attempts. The obtained results have shown that consultative psychiatric examinations were made in urgent conditions (aggressive patients), with few control examinations, which means without the follow up of the given therapy, without the use of psychotherapy and the principles of liaison psychiatry.