Profile of Patients Seen in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry in India: A Systematic Review

OBJECTIVES: This review aimed to evaluate all the published studies from India conducted in the consultation-liaison (CL) psychiatry setting to identify the diagnostic patterns and referral rates in this setting. Understanding the same can help in organizing the services and knowing the training needs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A thorough literature search was done in August 2020 using different search engines (PubMed, Medknow, and Google Scholar). This was followed by an individual search of various Indian Psychiatry journals and a hand search of references in the available articles. Only those studies that described patients referred to psychiatry services from various specialties were included. RESULTS: A total of 33 studies were selected for the review. More than half of them were published in the last 5 years. Studies have primarily reported psychiatric profile medically ill inpatients referred to CL psychiatry services, with the majority of the studies reporting the number of patients seen for the duration of at least 1 year. The referral rates for inpatients across different institutes have varied from 0.01% to 3.6%. The referral rates from emergency set-ups have varied from 1.42% to 5.4%, and in outpatients, from 0.06% to 7.17%. The most commonly diagnosed psychiatric disorders across different studies include depression; organic disorders, including delirium; substance use; intentional self-harm; and anxiety disorders. CONCLUSIONS: A limited number of studies have reported the profile of patients seen in CL psychiatry setups. Available data from these studies suggest that referral rates to psychiatry services from other specialists are dismal. There is an urgent need to change the focus of psychiatry training at both undergraduate and the postgraduate levels to enhance the psychiatric knowledge of physicians to improve psychiatry referrals.