Common but unexplored psychiatric morbidity among referred indoor patients: A Liaison study in India

Abstract

The background of this investigation is the global occurrences of the large number of unexplored cases of psychiatric morbidity among referred indoor patients from non-psychiatric clinical domain. Present Consultation-Liaison (C-L) study explore the prevalence of disorders in mental-health and its relation to different psychosocial and demographic factors among referred patients from general medicine, chest medicine and cardiology departments of a Medical College, India. Here, 102 patients (13–75 years) were assessed and diagnosed by clinical interview utilizing Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) criteria, Glasgow Coma Scale, Mini Mental State Examination. After initial assessment of inconsistent behaviors, depression, delirium in referring ward, patients were evaluated in the psychiatric outpatient department by Thematic Apperception Test, Rorschach Ink Blot Test and Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. The SPSS for Windows statistical software package (SPSS) was used for descriptive statistics. Group comparison and their interrelations were drawn by percentage calculations and Chi-square analysis. The presentfinding reveals that both sexes are equally affected whereas, age-wise, 16–45 years of either gender and >55 years of male are affected more. The 75% patients of total referrals are urban dwellers. The patients in <16 years group of rural and >55 years of urban are affected more. Marital statuses manifest differential prevalence of this disorder in the participants. The male has higher cognitive whereas the female has a higher mood disorder. Materialistic life, psychosocial maladjustment, inadequate benefits and diagnostic uncertainty strongly correlate with the present findings and highlight the occurrence of psychiatric cases from the non-psychiatric clinical domain.