Most studies of prisoners, the nature of their offending and any related characteristics have been conducted in rich Western countries. In Nigeria, prison conditions differ in many important respects, key among them that prisoners share large communal spaces much of the time-up to 50 men sleeping in the same space as well as spending the day together. Our aim was to compare levels of impulsivity,
Delirium is a complex neuropsychiatric syndrome that is often associated with adverse outcomes including prolonged hospitalization. This study aims to determine the length of hospital stay among medically-ill patients with and without delirium who were admitted through the Accident and Emergency unit of the Jos University Teaching Hospital, in North-Central Nigeria. It was a cross-sectional study that employed a consecutive sampling technique to select 290 eligible subjects in a face-to-face interview, using a confusion assessment method to assess for delirium within 24 hours of admission. All the respondents were followed-up from the Accident and Emergency unit until discharge or death. The results showed that respondents with delirium rather than those without, were significantly more likely to stay longer in the hospital (P < 0.001). The significant factors associated with prolonged hospitalization among those with delirium include, current medications use, duration of illness before presentation and type of medical diagnosis (P < 0.001), (P < 0.001) and (P < 0.001) respectively. The results point to the importance of screening for delirium in medically-ill patients, with particular attention to patients with infectious and cerebrovascular diseases.
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.
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