Nonpsychiatric Physicians' Attitudes Toward Psychiatric Consultation

정신과자문에 대한 타과 의사들의 태도

The authors investigated 131 nonpsychiatric physicians' attitudes toward psychiatric consultation, using questionnaires. A comparison was made as regards psychiatric consultation from nonpsychiatric physicians over position(staffs vs. residents) and department(medical vs. surgical). These findings are as follows ; 1) 51.9 percent of nonpsychiatric physicians estimated that less than 30 percent of their patientshadpgychiatricproblems. 2) The percentage of the patients referred for psychiatric consultation were 30 or less than 30 percent 3) Staffs tried to refer their patients to psychiatric department for psychiatric consultation more frequently than residents. 4) Medical physicians tried to refer their patients to psychiatric department for psychiatric consultation more frequently than surgeons. 5) Psychiatric consultation was estimated to be most frequently requested for overt psychiatric symptoms(23.0%) and past history of psychiatric treatment(20.8%). 6) The most frequent causes of not referring to department of psychiatry were found to be the patients' rejection(46.8%) and non-psychiatric physicians' dissatisfaction with the results of consultation (22.2%). 7) Medical physicians tended to explain the reasons for psychiatric consultation more adequately than surgeons. 8) Residents more specifically wrote the reasons for psychiatric consultation on the chart than staffs. The results suggest that staffs are more active in psychiatric consultation than residents, whereas medical physicians are more active than surgeons. Thus, education should be more emphasized for surgeons and residents, especially for the latter for effective consultation-liaison activity. On the other hand, psychiatrists should try to improve nonpsychiatric physicians' dissatisfactions with the results of psychiatric consultations, which will positively change their attitudes toward psychiatric consultation.