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Objective: Several prior studies have investigated whether patients with "non-cognitive" mental disorders (i.e., organic disorders, substance abuse, delirium, and psychotic disorders excluded) have longer Length Of Stay (LOS) than mentally healthy individuals in nonpsychiatric hospital settings. These studies yielded contrasting results. The present paper aims to examine whether methods of psychiatric case finding can explain these differences., Methods: Using the Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS) and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), 462 in-patients of medical, surgical, gynecological, and rehabilitation departments were assessed for the presence of psychiatric disorders., Results: In multiple regression analysis, all CIS-cases together did not show an association with LOS. Of the diagnostic groups assessed by CIS only major depression showed a significantly prolonged LOS. Using the GHQ sum-score as a continuous variable, LOS was significantly increased while using the GHQ as a dichotomous variable did not show such an association. After removing those suffering from multiple psychiatric diagnoses (such as major depression co-morbid with organic mental illness), none of the case definitions showed a significant association with LOS., Conclusions: It seems that different case finding methods yield different results concerning the association of psychiatric disorders with LOS. When interpreting these results the small size of some subsamples must be taken into consideration.

Purpose: While the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) has an excellent screening performance among outpatients and in the community, its accuracy to detect mental disorders among non-psychiatric inpatients was reported to be lower. The aim of the present study was to compare the criterion validity of different scoring methods, i.e. the Bimodal scoring, Likert scoring, Modified Likert scoring and Chronic scoring, of the 30-, 20- and 12-item version of the GHQ., Methods: The GHQ was available from 511 inpatients recruited from surgical, medical, gynaecological and physical rehabilitation wards. The Clinical Interview Schedule was performed for psychiatric case-identification and was used as external care criterion., Results: Sensitivities of all versions were between 0.612 and 0.701, and specificities between 0.601 and 0.759. The Overall Misclassification Rate (OMR) varied for the Bimodal and the Modified Likert scoring method between 0.257 and 0.281, for the Likert and the Chronic scoring method between 0.325 and 0.386. Overall, the Bimodal and the Modified Likert scoring method showed significantly better specificity and OMR than the Likert and the Chronic scoring method, while we could not find any differences for sensitivity., Conclusions: Overall, the Bimodal and the Modified Likert scoring method seem to be more accurate than the Likert and the Chronic scoring method. Nevertheless, due to the high misclassification, none of these versions can be recommended for routine screening among non-psychiatric inpatients.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to estimate the need for psychiatric consultation services and psychiatric inpatient referral among inpatients of non-psychiatric hospital departments, and to assess the actual utilization of these services., Methods: The study was carried out among 728 inpatients of physical rehabilitation wards, medical, surgical, and gynecological wards in Austrian hospitals. Psychiatric case identification was performed by research psychiatrists using the Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS). Diagnoses were given according to DSM-III-R. The assessment of need for consultation and inpatient referral was based on the clinical judgments of research psychiatrists., Results: Overall, 34.2% of the inpatients were cases according to the CIS-criteria, 51.8% of them needing either psychiatric consultation or inpatient referral according to research psychiatrists. In 66.7% of those for whom research psychiatrists had stated a need, this need was not met ("unmet need"), while only 33.3% of them had their need met. In contrast, a psychiatric consultation was performed among 5% of those patients not needing psychiatric services according to the research psychiatrists ("overprovision"). Variables of the health care system (i.e. department type and catchment area of the hospital) were among the predictors for "met needs"., Conclusion: The rate of actual psychiatric consultations and admissions to psychiatric wards was markedly lower than the need according to research psychiatrists' judgment.

Although diagnostics of organic psychoses already had been quite well established at the beginning of the last century, no satisfactory results had been achieved in the field of functional psychoses. This led to a return towards the concept of "unitarian psychoses" and thus to a revival of cross-sectional diagnoses. With the development of psychopharmacological compounds the need for exact demarcation of disease grew. Around this time syndromatological classification systems that were supposed to be used internationally have been developed. In the course of the last thirty years the argument about the meaning of psychiatric diagnoses rose anew; the necessity of standardized means of psychiatric diagnoses was contrasted by the fact that there was no way of defining disease entities for clinical research. A polydiagnostic approach as well as clinical diagnose of the illness course--using single symptoms as predictors of the disease's course--could point to a solution.

Diagnosis and differential diagnosis of disturbance of consciousness are often difficult, especially when occurring in the course of psychiatric diseases. Apart from discord in defining the term of consciousness it is not always easy to distinguish between qualitative and quantitative alterations of the disorders. The performance of an exact interview and a thorough clinical examination allows an estimation of the degree of dimming of consciousness as well as the possible causes. Disorder of Consciousness is often found in patients carrying out substance abuse but also in the course of other psychiatric diseases such as depression, schizophrenia, personality disorders and dissociative disorders. This article is dealing with the clinical approach towards patients experiencing alterations or disturbances of consciousness and is also trying to communicate innovations in the field of psychiatric diagnostics.

An attempt was made to improve the validity of the 30-item General Health Questionnaire by excluding items. This exclusion was performed by using correlations of sum-scores with an external case criterion. This hierarchical approach based on subsets of items (stepwise hierarchical variable selection) resulted in a 9-item questionnaire whose discriminating performance was significantly better than that of the original version.

Several studies reported that in non-psychiatric hospital departments mentally ill patients have a longer length of hospital stay than mentally well. But their methods are often limited because other predictors of length of stay were excluded from statistical analyses. Using the Clinical Interview Schedule, research psychiatrists interviewed 993 patients of medical, surgical, gynecological, and rehabilitation departments in Austria. Using several multiple regression analyses, the influence of psychiatric comorbidity and other variables on length of stay was analyzed. 32.2% of all patients suffered from psychiatric morbidity. Of all psychiatric cases, 6.2% received more than one psychiatric diagnosis. Presence of psychiatric disorders, age, a diagnosis of neoplasms, number of all somatic diagnoses, and the number of previous non-psychiatric hospital admissions predicted length of stay. Patients with dementia, with substance abuse disorders, and with alcohol- and drug-related psychiatric disorders showed a significantly increased length of stay, while other psychiatric diagnoses did not differ from the mentally well. Even after controlling for confounding variables, dementia and substance related diagnoses increase the length of hospital stay. It is important to investigate interventions for early recognition and treatment of these disorders.

Several studies from Anglo-American countries indicate that in non-psychiatric hospital departments mentally ill patients have a longer length of hospital stay than mentally well, while in Austria and Germany, until now, no studies concerning this question exist. Therefore, we investigated the influence of psychiatric comorbidity on the length of stay in 608 patients of medical, surgical and gynecological departments in Vienna and Tyrol. Based on the Clinical Interview Schedule, 28.1% of the patients in this sample suffered from psychiatric disorders. The presence of psychiatric disorders, as well as type of hospital department (medical department), higher age, more previous non-psychiatric treatment periods, and more somatic diagnoses predicted a longer duration of inpatient treatment. To avoid the influence of cofounding variables, psychiatric cases were matched with psychiatric non-cases. The mentally ill group was treated for a markedly longer period as inpatients than the mentally well. Patients with a diagnosis of dementia or of substance abuse showed a significantly increased length of stay, while we could not confirm this for other psychiatric diagnoses.

While several surveys have shown that psychiatric disorders are common in non-psychiatric hospital departments, information on the course of psychiatric morbidity during the hospital stay is still lacking. Therefore, in two medical hospital departments in Austria we investigated the course of illness in 265 patients staying in the hospital for more than four weeks. Patients were interviewed using the Clinical Interview Schedule. At admission, prevalence of all psychiatric disorders was 46.0%. During the four weeks after admission, mentally well were discharged from hospital more frequently than mentally ill. Among those staying in the hospital after four weeks, prevalence was 51.4%. In the intervening period, the incidence (9.5%) was slightly lower than the rate of remission (12.4%). At both assessments, organic mental illness was the most frequent diagnosis followed by neurotic and adjustment disorders. Thus, in spite of the slightly higher rate of remission than incidence, the overall psychiatric prevalence increased during the first four weeks after admission because of the earlier discharges of the mentally well. In conclusion, our results show that point-prevalence surveys not regarding disease course give an incomplete impression of psychiatric morbidity in non-psychiatric hospital departments.

Several studies have shown that psychiatric disorders are common in nursing homes, but information on the course of psychiatric morbidity shortly after admission is still lacking. Therefore, we interviewed 262 residents of Austrian nursing homes within 2 weeks following admission, and a second time after 6 months. Using the Clinical Interview Schedule and its case criteria, prevalence was 76.3% at admission, and 69.9% 6 months later. In the intervening period, the mortality rate was markedly higher among psychiatric cases, and the incidence of new psychiatric cases (5.9%) was slightly lower than the rate of remission (8.6%). At both assessments, organic mental illness was the most frequent diagnosis. Nursing home residents suffering from psychiatric disorders were treated predominantly by general practitioners applying a psychotropic drug regimen.

A total of 728 patients admitted to the medical, gynaecological and surgical departments of one urban and one rural general hospital in Austria were investigated for psychiatric morbidity. Using the Clinical Interview Schedule and its case criteria, the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity was found to be highest in medical departments (38.2%), followed by surgical departments (32.5%), and lowest in gynaecological departments (20.7%). Among medical and surgical patients, dementia and substance abuse disorders were the most frequent psychiatric categories, while in gynaecological departments neurotic disorders showed the highest frequency. For the sample as a whole, single status (i.e. unmarried, widowed or divorced), lower social class and rural catchment area of the general hospital predicted a high prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in a logistic regression analysis, while complications of childbirth, pregnancy or the puerperium, and diseases of the skin or the musculoskeletal system showed a negative association with psychiatric illness.