[Organic mental disorders in psychiatric consultation: a preliminary report]

In 200 cases for psychiatric consultation, 73 (36.5%) cases, 51 males and 22 females, were diagnosed as suffered from organic mental syndrome/disorder according to DSM-III-R criteria. Their mean age was 47.9 +/- 18.9 years. The leading psychiatric diagnosis were delirium (45.2%) and substance intoxication/withdrawal (20.5%). The main reasons for psychiatric consultation were psychotic symptoms (31.5%) and conscious disturbance (19.2%). The most common presumed etiologies for organic mental disorders were psycoactive substance related (39.7%) and metabolic (15.1%) causes. The comparisons of the results reported by several medical centers in recent years were further discussed in the text.