The study of the pattern of inpatients referral to consultation-liaison unit is important as significant proportion of patients with physical illnesses also suffer from psychiatric disorder. It will help in designing better consultation-liaison services that is geared toward holistic health care. The study was aimed at determining the psychiatric morbidity, referral patterns and sociodemographic profiles of in-patients referred to consultation-liaison unit of Jos University Teaching Hospital. It was a descriptive prospective study of all consenting patients. A total of 142 patients were referred to consultation-liaison unit during the study period of August 2014 to July 2015. The referral rate was 1.7%. The mean age+SD of referred patients was 38+16.59 years. There were more females 84(59.2%) than males 58(40.8%). Among the referred patients majority had secondary education 60(42.3%) and were never-married 67(47.2%). The major source of referral 97(68.3%) was from medical ward and reasons for referral were; to help in management 68.3%, previous psychiatric contact 12.0% and abnormal behavior 10.6%. The predominant psychiatric diagnoses using ICD-10 criteria were depression 27(19.0%), acute organic brain syndrome 18(12.7%), alcohol dependence 15(10.6%) and puerperal psychosis/depression 12(8.5%). Co-morbid physical conditions were present in 123(86.6%) mainly, infections 25(17.6%), retroviral infections 18(12.7%), neurological conditions 8(5.6%), trauma/head injury 13(9.2%) and cardiovascular diseases 12(8.5%).  The low referral rate and reasons for referral revealed the referring physicians scope of the understanding of psychiatry. Therefore, clinicians should be adequately exposed to basic knowledge of psychiatry and should be able to recognize common psychiatric conditions and referred appropriately for a holistic healthcare.

Long duration of hospitalisation has been associated with negative consequences of isolating the patients from their social network, initiating maladaptive patterns in the patients and worsening the burden of care on the relatives. In this particular study, we were interested in determining factors that correlate with length of stay on admission among in-patients receiving psychiatric services in North-Central Nigeria. The prospective study was part of a larger in-patients study conducted on 112 consenting patients admitted in the psychiatric wards of Benue State University Teaching Hospital Makurdi, Federal Medical Centre Makurdi and Jos University Teaching Hospital Jos during the study period. Patients who stayed on hospital admission for more than twenty-eight (28) days were classified as ‘long stay’, conversely, those who were discharged from admission after spending 28 days or less were referred to as ‘short stay’ patients. A total of 112 subjects were recruited for the study, 67(59.8%) were female while 45(40.2%) were male, the mean age was 36.98±11.09 years and 54(48.2%) subjects were still married at the time of the study. Forty-two representing 37.5% of the respondents stayed on admission for more than 28 days. The mean duration of stay was 28.8±24.5 days. Long duration of stay was found to be significantly associated with the quality of intimate partner relationship (p=0.001), years of completed education (p=0.021), age group (p=0.001), nature of psychiatric diagnosis (p=0.014), pharmacotherapy (p=0.001), comorbid physical condition (p=0.001), previous admission (p=0.001), defaulted treatment (p=0.001), frequency of previous episodes (p=0.001) and the number of years a patient has had the mental disorder (p=0.001). We concluded that, assessing duration of stay on admission among in-patients treatment for psychiatric disorders is very necessary.