Inpatient psychiatric referrals from general and specialist hospitals in kuwait A descriptive study

الملخص EN

Psychiatrists are increasingly called on to evaluate and treat persons with comorbid physical disorders.

The objectives of this study were to examine different elements of the psychiatric consultation process in Kuwait and to compare our findings to those of similar studies carried out in other parts of the world.

The study included 263 psychiatric consultation requests received by Kuwait Psychological Medicine Hospital from all Kuwait hospitals in year 1999.

The requests were studied retrospectively regarding referring medical / surgical specialty, sex and age of referred patients, types of requests as regards urgency (according to the referring physician's judgment), reason for psychiatric consultation, psychiatric diagnosis, and recommended psychiatric interventions.

Results showed that males and females were almost equally represented in the study (49.8 % and 52.2 % respectively), 70 % of the requests were received from medical specialties and 30% from surgical specialties.

Patients with ages between 21 and 40 years were more commonly referred for psychiatric consultation than those of other age groups (p = 0.015), suicidal attempt (or threat) was the most common reason for consultation (24.6 %), adjustment disorder, mood disorders, and organic mental disorders were the most common psychiatric diagnoses 22.3 %, 22.3 %, and 21.3 % respectively), and pharmacotherapy was the most frequently recommended psychiatric intervention (45.9 %).

The study concluded that suicidal behavior is the most common reason for psychiatric consultation in Kuwait, consultation psychiatrists do not tend to record the diagnosis of "personality disorder" and they are less likely to recommend psychotherapy for their patients.