Psychiatric Illness at General Hospital Clinics.

PATIENTS suffering from a psychiatric illness often present with many bodily complaints. It is not surprising to find, therefore, that these patients are sometimes referred to the general hospital clinics for the investigation of somatic disease. The aim of this paper is to review the subject, describe an investigation at a general hospital clinic and to discuss the various problems raised. Relatively few investigations have been made into the problems presented by psychiatric patients at the general clinics, though it is a large and important one. Table i shows the reported incidence of psychiatric illness among medical out-patients. The mean is 27.3%. Patients with concurrent organic and psychiatric illness account for another io to 40% of the patients seen in the different surveys.