General hospital psychiatry
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Gen Hosp Psychiatry · Jul 2005
Comparative StudyPsychiatric disorders among patients admitted to a French medical emergency service.
The authors assessed the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among a population of patients examined in the emergency service of a French general hospital. They compared patients with and without psychiatric disorders. They also compared patients where the primary motive of emergency was psychiatric to those whose psychiatric disorders were secondarily diagnosed by a systematic assessment. ⋯ Thirty-eight percent of the patients examined in a French emergency service presented with psychiatric disorders. The majority of the patients (78%) were not referred to the emergency service for psychiatric reasons. Patients seen in an emergency service should thus be identified as a population at risk for psychiatric disorders whatever their reason for utilizing this service.
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Gen Hosp Psychiatry · Jul 2005
Desire for death near the end of life: the role of depression, anxiety and pain.
This study evaluated the desire of patients with advanced cancer for hastened death to determine its relationship to psychological distress, anxiety and pain. ⋯ In terminally ill cancer patients, depression and anxiety as well as the interaction between HADS-Depression and opioids appeared to have a significant impact on the desire for hastened death while pain does not. Effective management of psychological symptoms seems to be an important aspect of adequate palliative care in order to reduce the desire for hastened death.