Clinical profile of inpatients referred to a consultation-liaison psychiatry service: an observational study assessing changes over a 10-year-period

Objective. Previous research has described the characteristics of Consultation-liaison psychiatry (CLP) services over one or more years. The aim of this paper was to examine the patterns of a large sample of patients receiving CLP service over a 10-year-period (2005-2014) and to determine the possible changes over time of the clinical practice. The sample size of our study, the duration of the observation period and the application of standardized operating procedures for acquiring and coding data, will provide more robust evidence than has been reported by most similar studies published in the last years. Methods. Longitudinal observational and descriptive study. Data were collected prospectively with standardized operating procedures on consecutive inpatient consultation requests to the University Clinical Hospital of Barcelona CLP service. Results. 9,808 psychiatric consultation were requested (referral rate=2.2%). The referrals to our CLP service were requested mainly by medical units. The most frequent psychiatric diagnoses were alcohol-related disorders, delirium and adjustment disorders. The mean percentage of patients treated with psychopharmacologic drugs was 81.6%. The mean length of the hospital stays of patients with psychiatric comorbidity referred to our CLP service was significantly longer than that of all the admissions to the hospital during that period. Most of the studied variables remained constant over the 10-year-period. However, some somatic diagnoses at admission, reasons for referral and recommendations of psychotropic drugs presented significant changes. Conclusions. Despite the continuous evolution and changes of several factors in the last two decades, like the health care systems, the clinical practice of CLP services has been quite stable over time. However, our results support the idea of a non-static specialty.