Low frequency of request for liaison psychiatry: A difficulty in the early detection of mental disorders by medical assistants?

Abstract

Introduction

The liaison psychiatry (LP) is a feature used by the psychiatrist in order to improve the management of patients with mental suffering and/or mental disorder admitted to general hospital.

Objectives

To characterize the epidemiological profile of hospitalized patients at the university hospital of the federal university of Sergipe (HU-UFS) submitted to LP.

Methods

retrospective and observational study, through analysis of medical records of patients admitted in the wards of clinical medicine and surgery from the HU-UFS, in the period from January to December 2015, submitted to LP. The information collected fed a specific questionnaire developed by the authors, intended for research of socio-demographic data and clinical profile.

Results

the frequency of request for IP was of 3.5%, with the majority of applications was performed by clinical medicine (71.2%), while the surgical clinic was responsible for 28.8%. The main reason for the request of LP was the presence of depressive symptoms (49.1%). There was a predominance of females (52.5%) and the mean age was 45.9 ± 14.6 years.

Conclusions

The frequency of request for LP was very low, suggesting a difficulty in the early detection of mental disorders by physicians. This finding points to an underreporting of cases, since the prevalence of depressive symptoms in hospitalized patients is over 50% in this institution.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.