Consultation-Liaison psychiatric service delivery: results from a European study

• Author(s): Huyse, F ; Herzog, T ; Lobo, A ; Malt, U ; Opmeer, B ; Stein, B ; Jonge, P ; Dijck, R ; Creed, F ; Crespo, MD ; Cardoso, G
• Date: 2001
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.10/633
• Origin: Repositório do Hospital Prof. Doutor Fernando Fonseca
• Subject(s): Perturbações mentais; Psiquiatria de ligação; Europa; Consultation-liaison psychiatry
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

The reported findings of the European Consultation-Liaison Workgroup (ECLW) Collaborative Study describe consultation-liaison service delivery by 56 services from 11 European countries aggregated on a C-L service level. During the period of 1 year (1991), the participants applied a standardized, reliability tested method of patient data collection, and data were collected describing pertinent characteristics of the hospital, the C-L service, and the participating consultants. The consultation rate of 1% (median; 1.4% mean) underscores the discrepancy between epidemiology and the services delivered. The core function of C-L services in general hospitals is a quick, comprehensive emergency psychiatric function. Reasons to see patients were the following. deliberate self-harm (17%), substance abuse (7.2%), current psychiatric symptoms (38.6%), and unexplained physical complaints (18.6%) (all means). A significant number of patients are old and seriously ill. Mood disorders and organic mental disorders are most predominant (17.7%). Somatoform and dissociative disorders together constitute 7.5%. C-L services in European countries are mainly emergency psychiatric services and perform an important bridge function between primary, general health, and mental health care.