A Descriptive Study of Referral Pattern in Department of Psychiatry of A Tertiary Care Hospital of North India.

Introduction: Liaison psychiatry is the one of the lynchpin between psychiatry and the other medical specialties. The incidence of mental disorders in hospitalized physically ill patients has been found to range from 5.0% to 50.0%.4 The objective of our study was to study the frequency and pattern of psychiatric referral at department of psychiatry, University College of Medical Sciences & Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital, Delhi. Materials and Methods: This study was carried in the psychiatry outpatient’s department of University College of Medical Sciences and Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital, Delhi. Between all possible consecutive cases referred from different out patient and inpatient departments February 2010 to 2011 were included in the study. The subjects were assessed during a semistructured proforma and try severe established in ICD-10. Results: Total number of 484 of patients was referred medicine department sent the maximum number of consultations, followed by surgery, Eye/ENT, orthopaedics. The most prevalent ICD-10 diagnosis was depressive disorder .Psychiatric consultation was sought for various reasons including expert opinion, abnormal behavior, irrelevant talk and other reasons. Conclusion: Consultation Psychiatry through the referral system is only a tip of the iceberg of the actual potential of psychiatric involvement in general hospital practice. There is need for research in this field to explore ways. Further research to warranted to find ways to realise the actual potential of consultation-liaison Psychiatry in a tertiary hospital setup.

Geriatric Mental Health in a Tertiary Care Centre: Socio-Demographic and Clinical variables.

Background: Nearly 50% of the aged have some physical ailment and are in need of active health care. Geriatric psychiatry is a sub-specialty of psychiatry, which deals with psychopathology occurring in the elderly and the various aetiological factors which cause the mental disorders in old age. Method: This is a descriptive study with sampling in a tertiary centre where the diagnoses were made based on the tenth edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD- 10) and were evaluated for sociodemographic and clinical variables as well as general medical conditions. Results: Mean age of the patients was 69.81 years, male constituted 73.58% and female 26.42%, Hindu were 56.60% and Islam 43.40%. Mean duration of stay in psychiatry ward was 5.7 days. 77.36% of patients were discharged on advice, 15.09% were transferred to another department, 1.89% absconded, 1.89% referred to another hospital and 3.77% referred to another department. 9.62% patients had general medical conditions alone and 40.38% had psychiatric disorders alone while 50% had combined psychiatric disorders with general medical conditions. 42.31% patients had organic, including symptomatic, mental disorders; 3.85% had mental and behavioural disorders due to psychoactive substance use; 26.92% had schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorders; 28.85% had mood [affective] disorders; 5.77% patients had neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders. Conclusion: Within the limitations of nongeneralizability of findings, present study throws light in important areas of geriatric mental health including general medical conditions.

National survey of Prevalence of Mental Disorders in Egypt: preliminary survey

This study is an initial step for the National Survey of Prevalence of Mental Disorders in Egypt. We conducted a door-to-door household survey of 14 640 adults aged 18-64 years in 5 regions in Egypt. Mental disorders were diagnosed using the MINI-Plus diagnostic interview. Overall prevalence was estimated at 16.93% of the studied adult population. The main problems were mood disorders, 6.43%, anxiety disorders, 4.75%, and multiple disorders, 4.72%. Mental disorders were associated with sociodemographic factors [e.g. being female, being unemployed, being divorced] and physical illness [e.g. heart disease, kidney disease, hypertension]