A brief diagnostic screening instrument for mental disturbances in general medical wards

Abstract

Objective: Mental illness is prevalent among general hospital ward patients but often goes unrecognised.

Sick leave and work disability in primary care patients with recent-onset multiple medically unexplained symptoms and persistent somatoform disorders: a 10-year follow-up of the FIP study

“…This questionnaire included an eight-item version of the Symptom Check List (SCL-8) assessing anxiety and depression [21,22]; the somatization subscale of the SCL-90 (SCL-SOM) screening for 12 common physical symptoms [23]; the Whitely Index (Whitely-7) assessing illness worry and conviction [24]; and the four-item Cutting down, Annoyance by criticism, Guilty feeling, Eye openers (CAGE) screening questionnaire on alcohol abuse [25]. Additionally, patients completed the Medical Outcome Study's Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) assessing physical and mental health [26], and sociodemographic data were obtained.…”

One single diagnosis, bodily distress syndrome, succeeded to capture 10 diagnostic categories of functional somatic syndromes and somatoform disorders

“…In a two-phase design, consecutive patients attending their primary care physician or a medical or a neurological department were screened for physical symptoms [24], illness worry [25], and anxiety or depression [26]; those with high scores on any of these instruments were selected for the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN) diagnostic interview. In order to produce a stratified sample including low-scorers, we also selected for interview a random sample of one ninth of the remaining primary care patients and one third of the neurological and internal medical patients [12,[27][28][29].…”

Negative affectivity and social inhibition in cardiovascular disease: Evaluating type-D personality and its assessment using item response theory

“…IRT methods have been applied to measure distress and quality of life in the medical context, including the shortening of scales to measure psychopathology in general, medical wards [17], or quality of life in cancer patients [18], and the rating of musculoskeletal pain in rehabilitation patients [19]. There is, however, a paucity of research on personality in the medical context, including the use of IRT methods in this context.…”