Psychiatric Illness in Gynaecological Outpatients: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

Psychiatric patients frequently make somatic complaints which are not related to physical pathology, but this is often not fully appreciated by medical practitioners other than psychiatrists. Dowling and Knox (1964) have shown that depressive patients are often diagnosed as physically ill, especially if they have had a notable physical illness in the previous five years. Stoeckle and Davidson (1962) note that depressive patients are frequently referred to medical and surgical clinics and sometimes receive inappropriate treatment as a result. Sainsbury (1960) showed that gynaecological patients are, on average, more neurotic than normal. The present author (Munro, 1964) found that depressive women were excessively liable to have undergone a gynaecological operation in the year preceding their admission to psychiatric hospital.