The European Consultation-Liaison Workgroup (ECLW) collaborative study

A multicenter investigation of consultation-liaison psychiatry in Italy

“…1 All of the patients admitted to the hospitals and referred to psychiatry during a period of 12 consecutive months, between 1993 and 1994, were assessed using an abridged version of the Patient Registration Form (PRF-SF) [7,8], with the necessary alterations according to the Italian cultural context and health service. The instrument consists of 60 items in five main areas: 1) patient's data (e.g., sociodemographic data, psychiatric history, patient's health care status before admission); 2) hospitalization data (e.g., date of admission and discharge, ward, lag-time of request); 3) consultation data (e.g., primary reasons for referral, psychiatric diagnosis at consultation); 4) intervention (e.g., psychological intervention, pharmacological intervention, transfer); and 5) outcome (e.g., formulation of postdischarge plan, death of patient).…”

“…In accordance with the European study [7,10], all the assessors underwent a reliability test which consisted of completing the PRF-SF and giving an ICD-10 psychiatric diagnosis for 13 precoded vignette cases which were sent and evaluated by the main center (Milan). Eighty-five out of 87 consultants fulfilled the reliability criteria (average Ն 0.70) and took part in the study (participation rate 97%).…”

European Consultation–LiaisonPsychiatric Services:the ECLW Collaborative Study

“…In Germany., a specific goal of the study was to balance the sample of participating C-L services towards psychiatric C-L services and those with a psychosomatic theoretical background (for a description of the specific aspects of C-L service delivery in Germany, see Herzog (4,5)). Through this network of national co-ordinators the programme management group was able to guarantee a The ECLW collaborative study broad sample of services, to set up central and national training and reliability studies (9).…”

“…Eighty-three C-L services from 11 countries were able to participate in reliability training and testing. Finally, 56 C-L services fulfilled the inclusion criteria and have been included (9)(10)(11). These criteria were: period of study (1 year), minimum case-load (26 cases), reliability criteria and the provision of institutional and provider data.…”

“…Although differences in the availability of these data had been expected, it had been decided to develop an extensive instrument applicable to different health care systems (9). Only those variables were included in this specific study when the information was available for at least 95% of the centres.…”