Psychological distress in medical patients referred for psychiatric consultation: Significantly higher than in a comparison group of medical patients not so referred

: Psychological distress in 29 hospitalized medical patients referred for psychiatric consultation and in 30 such patients not referred for consultation was measured with the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSl). The male and female comparison patients scored within the upper range of normal, while the referred male and female patients had significantly higher scores on half of the individual items and on a majority of the global items. These results show that in this situation the referring internists had been sensitive to psychological distress. Individual scores indicated that no referred patients should not have been referred, whereas some comparison patients would have qualified for referral.