Case series of introducing palliative care consultation in psychiatry

Abstract

Background: The significance of palliative care consultation in psychiatry is unclear. Actual case series: Analysis of the introduction of palliative care consultation in a large psychiatric hospital. Possible courses of action: Continue without offering, survey the need for or offer palliative care consultation, and analyse its introduction. Formulation of a plan: Palliative care consultation was established and details including patient age, department, diagnosis, main problem, solution and discharge were analysed during the first 2 years. Outcome: Two consultations in the first year and 18 consultations in the second year were requested (18 geriatric, 2 addiction, 0 general, clinical social and forensic psychiatry) involving two domains: delirium associated with dementia or another condition (75%) and mental illness (e.g. alcoholic psycho-syndrome, psychosis, suicidal tendency, schizophrenia, depression) and cancer (25%). Recommendations of consultations were realized in 95%. Lessons from the case series: Implementation of palliative care consultation in psychiatry is one possible method of how to introduce palliative care in a field of medicine with lack of palliative care. View: Future research should focus on reasons for reservations about palliative care in psychiatry, include more patients with severe persistent mental illness and assess the value of palliative care consultation in resolving this problem.