Mood disorders in general hospital inpatients: one year data from a psychiatric consultation-liaison service

Mood disorders (MD) show higher prevalence among psychiatric disorders. As a matter of fact 10% of inpatients in non psychiatric health care structures are affected by MD. A consultation-liaison service bridges the gap between psychiatric and other medical disciplines and increases the cooperation in the context of care, improving the diagnostic process for all inpatients in medical wards.

Our sample is composed of 1702 patients assessed from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2012 referred from the wards for psychiatric specialist evaluation in Santa Maria della Misericordia, Perugia, Italy. Each patient was assessed by a consultant psychiatrist performing a psychiatric interview leading to a diagnosis according to DSM-IV-TR criteria. Clinical and sociodemographic data were collected and registrered in the clinical records. SPSS software (ver. 18) was used for data analysis. Chi-square test and T-student tests were performed as appropriate. A p-value<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

17% of our sample shows a diagnosis within the mood disorder spectrum. As for the source of referrals we find that 51.4% came from the Emergency room, 39% from medical wards and 9.4% from surgical wards. On the basis of the consultation referral urgent status we found that 84% of requests needed to be seen within 24 h, most of them come from Emergency room. Statistically significant correlations can be found between the source of referrals, the reasons for the referrals, psychiatric care prior to the evaluation and the psychiatric disorder which was diagnosed during the assessment.

Consultation-liaison service for MD in an italian general hospital is generally based on emergency/urgency referrals from the Emergency room for patients already assessed to mental care facilities by private or national health service psychiatrists.