A measure of the ‘sick’ label in psychiatric disorder and physical illness

1987 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morton Beiser ◽  
Nancy Waxler-Morrison ◽  
William G. Iacono ◽  
Tsung-Yi Lin ◽  
Jonathan A.E. Fleming ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Physical Illness

Vitamin Deficiency and Mental Symptoms

1990 ◽  
Vol 156 (6) ◽  
pp. 878-882 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. W. P. Carney
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Ascorbic Acid ◽  
Folic Acid ◽  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Physical Illness ◽  
False Positives ◽  
Vitamin Deficiency ◽  
The Other ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Mental Symptoms

Recently, research into the connection between vitamins and psychiatric disorder, particularly affective changes, has been in the doldrums, with the exceptions perhaps of studies of folic acid and pyridoxine. The best way for research to proceed is first to establish that the association of a vitamin deficiency with a psychiatric disorder is beyond a chance finding. Then, questions should be asked about what mental symptoms it is linked with, and what the other associations (malnutrition, drugs, physical illness, etc) are. Lastly, queries should be raised about whether the association is causal or if the mental symptoms are merely secondary to the anorexia and poor diet so common in mental illness (or whether they are linked in a vicious circle as suggested by Reynoldset al(1971)). These questions became pertinent in the mid-1960s when reliable ways of assaying B vitamins such as folic acid became more generally available. In this review, I present evidence that deficiencies of folic acid, B12, thiamine, riboflavin, pyridoxine and ascorbic acid are not infrequently found in psychiatric practice. It should be remembered, however, that some ways of assaying vitamins are liable to give a larger proportion of spurious low results than other methods (false positives), although the adoption of more reliable ways of assaying vitamins should reduce this.

Adjustment to illness and handicap

2012 ◽  
pp. 1065-1071
Author(s):  
Allan House
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Physical Illness ◽  
Stress And Coping ◽  
Normal Process ◽  
Recent Onset ◽  
Chronic Disability ◽  
Acute Response ◽  
Adjustment To Illness ◽  
And Coping ◽  
Psychiatric Problems

Not everybody who develops a serious physical illness will have psychiatric problems as a consequence. To understand why, it is useful to have a model of the normal process of adjustment to stress; psychiatric disorder can then be seen as arising when that process, often called coping, is either maladaptive or is adaptive but only partially successful. This chapter will start with an outline of one theory of stress and coping as it applies to physical illness, followed by a review of disorders of adjustment to illness. A distinction will be drawn between recent-onset illness, which provokes an acute response, and long-standing illness, where the challenge is more often to adjust to chronic disability.

scholarly journals Combined effects of physical illness and comorbid psychiatric disorder on risk of suicide in a national population study

2014 ◽  
Vol 204 (6) ◽  
pp. 430-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Qin ◽  
Keith Hawton ◽  
Preben Bo Mortensen ◽  
Roger Webb
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Suicide Risk ◽  
Psychiatric Comorbidity ◽  
Conditional Logistic Regression ◽  
Physical Illness ◽  
Birth Date ◽  
Relative Timing ◽  
Comorbid Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
National Population ◽  
Timing Of Onset

BackgroundPeople with physical illness often have psychiatric disorder and this comorbidity may have a specific influence on their risk of suicide.AimsTo examine how physical illness and psychiatric comorbidity interact to influence risk of suicide, with particular focus on relative timing of onset of the two types of illness.MethodBased on the national population of Denmark, individual-level data were retrieved from five national registers on 27 262 suicide cases and 468 007 gender- and birth-date matched living controls. Data were analysed using conditional logistic regression.ResultsBoth suicides and controls with physical illness more often had comorbid psychiatric disorder than their physically healthy counterparts. Although both physical and psychiatric illnesses constituted significant risk factors for suicide, their relative timing of onset in individuals with comorbidity significantly differentiated the associated risk of suicide. While suicide risk was highly elevated when onsets of both physical and psychiatric illness occurred close in time to each other, regardless which came first, psychiatric comorbidity developed some time after onset of physical illness exacerbated the risk of suicide substantially.ConclusionsSuicide risk in physically ill people varies substantially by presence of psychiatric comorbidity, particularly the relative timing of onset of the two types of illness. Closer collaboration between general and mental health services should be an essential component of suicide prevention strategies.

The South London Somatisation Study

1994 ◽  
Vol 165 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. K. J. Craig ◽  
H. Drake ◽  
K. Mills ◽  
A. P. Boardman
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Life Events ◽  
Psychiatric Illness ◽  
Psychological Symptoms ◽  
Physical Illness ◽  
Secondary Gain ◽  
Life Event ◽  
Childhood Risk Factors

Background.A study of the influence of life-event stress on the onset and course of acute somatisation in primary care.Method.Forty-four somatisers were compared with 11 subjects who had psychiatric disorder but complained only of psychological symptoms, 39 patients who had ‘mixed’ conditions involving independent physical and psychiatric illness, 90 patients who had physical illness, and 123 healthy members of the general population.Results.Severely threatening life events were more common among all subjects with psychiatric disorder. A novel contextual rating of the potential of stressors to produce symptoms for ‘secondary gain’ was developed. In the 38 weeks before symptom onset, somatisers and psychologisers were more likely to have experienced at least one event which had this potential. Somatisers were also less likely to adopt neutralising coping efforts when faced with such a crisis.Conclusions.The likelihood of adopting neutralising efforts was closely related to the presence of a joint index of parental problems in care and exposure to physical illness in the subject's childhood. In a two-year follow-up, subsequent functional illnesses were also associated with experiences which had secondary-gain potential, and subjects with childhood risk factors continued to have higher rates of crises with secondary-gain potential and to fail to adopt neutralising coping strategies.

Liaison Psychiatry

1986 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 178-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Barczak
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Physical Illness ◽  
Medical Patients ◽  
Liaison Psychiatry ◽  
Liaison Officer ◽  
Psychiatric Expertise ◽  
Simple Definition

A liaison is a union or effective conjunction with another unit or force. A liaison officer is seen as one who forms links or integrates such units or forces. This is a simple definition obtained from a standard dictionary but a further attempt at defining what is meant by liaison psychiatry is not so easy. This problem of definition and the lack of uniformity in such services in different settings may partly result in the marked under-utilisation of psychiatric expertise in dealing with the large number of medical patients who have a psychiatric disorder regardless of the presence or absence of a physical illness.

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