Background: There is a dearth of studies which are related to consultation-liaison psychiatry in India. The psychiatric referral rates in India are very low, considering the higher rates of psychiatric morbidity in patients who attend various departments of a hospital. Studying the pattern of psychiatric referrals may pave the way for interventions to improve the current scenario. Methods:The study population comprised of all the patients who were referred for psychiatric consultation from other departments (both in-patient and out-patient) of the hospital over a period of two years. Data which was related to socio-demographic profile, source of referral, reason for referral and the psychiatric diagnosis were recorded and analyzed by using descriptive statistical methods.Results: A total of 520 patients were referred for psychiatric consultation, with a referral rate of 0.42%. A majority of the psychiatric referrals (59%) were from the department of medicine and the most common reason for referral was medically unexplained somatic complaints (23.1%), followed closely by anxiety (21%) and abnormal behaviour (13.1%). The most commonly diagnosed psychiatric disorders were neurotic, stress related and somatoform disorders (41.7%) followed by mood disorders (12.9%) and substance use disorders (12.7%). Conclusion:There is a need to encourage multi-disciplinary interaction in the management of patients who attend general hospitals, so as to better identify the psychiatric morbidity. Further studies should focus on interventions that can improve referral rates through early recognition of the common psychiatric conditions, with particular emphasis on sensitizing the general physicians, who are the most common source of psychiatric referrals.

Background:Attitude of doctors towards specific medical conditions plays a crucial role in patient care. Internship, being the final stage in undergraduate medical students’ training, can have a bearing on the attitude they develop towards various specialties. However, there is dearth of Indian studies comparing the attitude of interns towards psychiatric illness and other chronic medical conditions. In this background, the study was conceived with the objective of comparing the attitude of interns towards psychiatric illness and other chronic medical conditions.Aims:(1) To compare the attitude of interns towards Psychiatric illness and Diabetes Mellitus. (2) To compare the attitude of interns towards Psychiatric illness and HIV/AIDS.Setting and Design:Conducted at Sri Siddhartha medical college, Tumakuru as a cross sectional study.Methodology:The sample for this cross sectional study comprised of 130 interns in a tertiary care teaching hospital who had completed their postings in Psychiatry. Medical Condition Regard Scale (MCRS) was used to assess the attitude of interns towards Psychiatry, Diabetes Mellitus and HIV/AIDS.Statistical Analysis:SPSS 20 was used with Descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests to analyze the data obtained.Results:There was no significant difference between the overall MCRS scores for Diabetes Mellitus and psychiatric illnesses. However, many individual items and the overall scores of MCRS were significantly higher for psychiatric illnesses when compared to those for HIV/AIDS.Conclusions:The attitude of interns towards Psychiatric illness was comparable to that towards Diabetes Mellitus. However, their attitude towards Psychiatric illness was more favorable than that towards HIV/AIDS. Further studies need to focus on the various aspects of stigma/ attitude and the effect of undergraduate medical training on those aspects.

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