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Long-stay psychiatric patients were found to die from the same natural causes as the rest of the general population. However, the mortality risk of the long-stay psychiatric patients compared with that of the general population was notably higher, despite ongoing improvements in medical care and facilities. Inadequately organised somatic care and the prevailing culture of "non-somatic" treatment in psychiatry were suggested to, at least in part, explain this phenomenon. Attention ought to increasingly focus on somatic examinations and various health educational programmes specially designed for psychiatric patients and involving matters like healthy diet, smoking cessation and physical exercise. These practices should be a regular part of any patient's treatment programme. Also, the need to recognise factors associated with a patient's psychiatric disorder that could limit that patient's ability to communicate somatic symptoms and/or even lead to a refusal by that patient to have somatic diseases treated was seen as essential for providers of psychiatric services.

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