Psychiatric Illness in the General Hospital

Measuring Neuroticism in Nepali: Reliability and Validity of the Neuroticism Subscale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

“…The first trial recruited a small convenience sample of hospital outpatients, with, probably, a higher level of psychopathology 20 ; it therefore brought out a diversity of psychopathological concepts. This guided our rephrasing of the items for the second trial in a large representative sample of adults from the general population of Nepal.…”

The Extent of Mental Disorder: Beyond the Layman's Madness

“…In 1960 a close look was taken at the psychiatric disorders calling for consultation in the wards of a general hospital to find that about two-thirds of the cases, most of them suffering from clear-cut medical illnesses, were associated with a significant form of non-psychotic illness, half of them being clinically depressed (24). Subsequently, intensive studies have examined more representative samples of the inpatient population.…”

“…But if, in addition, the psychiatric aspects of illness referred to non-psychiatric outpatient departments are to be given due recognition more elaborate enquiries will clearly be required. That the information will not be derived from a bare account of outpatient attendance was shown some years ago when it was possible to assess psychiatric morbidity in a sample of 200 consecutive outpatients in a general hospital -100 of them referred to medical and 100 to surgical clinics (24). It had been recored over a twelve-month period that the outpatient department, physicians, surgeons, and gynaecologists of the hospital had requested psychiatric opinions on 3.4 percent of all new patients in their clinics.…”

Whence and whither ‘liaison’ psychiatry?

“…In addition to those with established somatic disease, a hospital population will contain many with somatic symptoms who show no evidence of any form of physical illness. Shepherd et al (1960) found that 38 % of a consecutive series of patients attending a medical out-patient clinic had psychiatric disability but no physical illness. These and other studies indicate that the need for an effective psychiatric liaison service within the general hospital is indisputable.…”