A Study Concerning the Psychopathology and Psychiatric Consultaion of Medical Outpatients: Focused on Medical Outpatients Compared with Health Control Group

Lee, Tong Geon; Kim, Jeong Gee

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
This study was carried out to investigate the characteristics of psychopathology of medical outpatients and to consider the necessity of psychiatric intervention.
METHODS
Total 840 subjects were selected for this study. They were divided into two groups; patient group included 482 medical outpatients of our hospital, and the control groups included 190 ordinary people who have not been ill and 168 people who visited health care center. SCL-90-R (Symptom Checklist-90-Revision), BDI (Beck Depression Inventory), and STAI (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) were used to measure psychopathology. A self-reported questionnaires were conpreted by the subjects and the hospital records were reviewed to find out the clinical characteristics and psychiatric consultation if any.
RESULTS
1) In the results of SCL-90-R, the patient group showed higher levels of somatization, depression, anxiety and psychosis in compared to the control group. 2) In the results of BDI, more people answered that they had serions difficulty in the patient group than in the control group. 3) In the results of STAI, the patient group showed higher score in the trait-anxiety as well as state-anxiety than the control group. 4) Many medical outpatients thought of psychological factor as the cause of their illnesses. 5) Despite medical outpatients were likely to suffer from physical symtoms of psychological causations, psychiatric consultation was no more than 3.1%.
CONCLUSION
While medical outpatients showed overt depression, anxiety, somatization, psychosis, there was few psychiatric intervention. In considering that the depression and anxiety have a negative effect on medical outpatients, psychiatric consultation and treatment is needed to expand in the clinical field.