Introduction: The clinical management of patients with psychotic disorders (PDs) can be particularly complex if it takes place in the context of consultation-liaison psychiatry (CLP) services within a general hospital. However, there are few studies specifically investigating the acute treatment procedures for these patients in CLP settings.
Objectives: To examine the characteristics of a sample of inpatients with a primary PD referred to a CLP service over a 10-year period and to compare the clinical features of this subgroup with patients with other diagnoses (ODs).
Materials and methods: Observational and descriptive study over a 10-year period (2005-2014) assessing prospectively adult inpatients admitted to non-psychiatric units of the University Clinical Hospital of Barcelona who were consecutively referred to our CLP service. We performed a posthoc analysis to compare the clinical features between the subgroup of patients with PDs and the rest of patients who meet the criteria for ODs.
Results: We requested 393 consultations for patients who either already had the diagnosis of a primary PD and 9,415 for patients with ODs. Our results showed that patients with PDs were younger than the patients with ODs, had a higher prevalence of somatic illnesses related with an unhealthy lifestyle (such as infectious, endocrine, or metabolic diseases), less frequency of cancer, and a need to receive a more intensive psychiatric care.
Conclusions: Inpatients with PDs referred to CLP have different clinical features compared with those who met the criteria for ODs. They are a highly complex group with specific psychiatric care needs.