Patient and Medical Unit Staff Experiences of Proactive and Integrated Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry in The HOME Study: A Qualitative Investigation

BACKGROUND

Consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry services aim to help general hospital staff provide better care for their patients. Recently, many inpatient C-L psychiatry services have adopted proactive and integrated approaches to achieve this aim. Despite these developments, there have been no interview-based studies of patients' and staff members' experiences of the new approaches.

OBJECTIVE

To gain an in-depth understanding of patients' and medical unit staff members' experiences of a proactive and integrated C-L psychiatry service for older medical inpatients (Proactive Integrated C-L Psychiatry [PICLP]).

METHODS

We conducted an interview-based qualitative study with thematic analysis. The participants were patients and staff who had experienced PICLP during The HOME Study, a randomized trial that evaluated PICLP in 24 medical units of three UK general hospitals.

RESULTS

We conducted 97 interviews: 43 with patients or their proxies (family members who were interviewed on behalf of patients with significant cognitive impairment) and 54 with staff members of all relevant disciplines. Patients and staff both described how PICLP was a helpful addition to medical care and discharge planning. It enhanced the medical unit team's ability to address psychological, psychiatric, and social needs and provide patient-centered care. They welcomed proactive biopsychosocial assessments and the broader perspective that these offered on patients' complex problems. They also valued the integration of C-L psychiatrists into the unit teams and their daily contact with them. For patients, it fostered a therapeutic relationship and helped them to be more engaged in decisions about their medical care and discharge planning. For staff, it enabled ready access to psychiatric expertise and training opportunities. The few reported experiences of PICLP being unhelpful were mainly about the greater number of clinicians involved in patients' care and a lack of clarity about professional roles in the integrated team.

CONCLUSIONS

We found that older inpatients and medical unit staff experienced PICLP as both acceptable and generally helpful. Our findings add to the existing evidence for the benefits of proactive and integrated C-L psychiatry services.

Proactive and integrated consultation-liaison psychiatry for older medical inpatients: A mixed methods description of training, care provided and clinician experience in the HOME study

OBJECTIVES

To describe the practical experience of delivering a proactive and integrated consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry service model (PICLP). PICLP is designed for older medical inpatients and is explicitly biopsychosocial and discharge-focused. In this paper we report: (a) observations on the training of 15 clinicians (seven senior C-L psychiatrists and eight assisting clinicians) to deliver PICLP; (b) the care they provided to 1359 patients; (c) their experiences of working in this new way.

METHOD

A mixed methods observational study using quantitative and qualitative data, collected prospectively over two years as part of The HOME Study (a randomized trial comparing PICLP with usual care).

RESULTS

The clinicians were successfully trained to deliver PICLP according to the service manual. They proactively assessed all patients and found that most had multiple biopsychosocial problems impeding their timely discharge from hospital. They integrated with ward teams to provide a range of interventions aimed at addressing these problems. Delivering PICLP took a modest amount of clinical time, and the clinicians experienced it as both clinically valuable and professionally rewarding.

CONCLUSION

The experience of delivering PICLP highlights the special role that C-L psychiatry clinicians, working in a proactive and integrated way, can play in medical care.

Modifiable risk factors for inpatient violence in psychiatric hospital: prospective study and prediction model

BACKGROUND

Violence perpetrated by psychiatric inpatients is associated with modifiable factors. Current structured approaches to assess inpatient violence risk lack predictive validity and linkage to interventions.

METHODS

Adult psychiatric inpatients on forensic and general wards in three psychiatric hospitals were recruited and followed up prospectively for 6 months. Information on modifiable (dynamic) risk factors were collected every 1-4 weeks, and baseline background factors. Data were transferred to a web-based monitoring system (FOxWeb) to calculate a total dynamic risk score. Outcomes were extracted from an incident-reporting system recording aggression and interpersonal violence. The association between total dynamic score and violent incidents was assessed by multilevel logistic regression and compared with dynamic score excluded.

RESULTS

We recruited 89 patients and conducted 624 separate assessments (median 5/patient). Mean age was 39 (s.d. 12.5) years with 20% (n = 18) female. Common diagnoses were schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (70%, n = 62) and personality disorders (20%, n = 18). There were 93 violent incidents. Factors contributing to violence risk were a total dynamic score of ⩾1 (OR 3.39, 95% CI 1.25-9.20), 10-year increase in age (OR 0.67, 0.47-0.96), and female sex (OR 2.78, 1.04-7.40). Non-significant associations with schizophrenia-spectrum disorder were found (OR 0.50, 0.20-1.21). In a fixed-effect model using all covariates, AUC was 0.77 (0.72-0.82) and 0.75 (0.70-0.80) when the dynamic score was excluded.

CONCLUSIONS

In predicting violence risk in individuals with psychiatric disorders, modifiable factors added little incremental value beyond static ones in a psychiatric inpatient setting. Future work should make a clear distinction between risk factors that assist in prediction and those linked to needs.

The Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders in General Hospital Inpatients: A Systematic Umbrella Review

BACKGROUND

To inform the future development of consultation-liaison psychiatry services, we need accurate information on the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the general hospital inpatient setting. Systematic reviews have summarized the literature on specific aspects of this broad topic, but there has been no high-level overview that aggregates their findings and identifies gaps in the relevant literature.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to produce a comprehensive overview of the field, summarizing the research literature on the prevalence of psychiatric disorders (i.e., interview-based psychiatric diagnoses) in general hospital inpatients. We did this using a systematic umbrella review (systematic review of systematic reviews), which is the best and most efficient method for summarizing a broad area of research.

METHODS

We searched Ovid Medline, Ovid Embase, Ovid PsycINFO, EBSCO CINAHL, and Scopus from database inception to September 2021 for systematic reviews that provided a pooled prevalence estimate, or prevalence range, for interview-diagnosed psychiatric disorders in general hospital inpatients. Two reviewers independently assessed articles and extracted data. The review is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42019125574.

RESULTS

We screened 11,728 articles and included 10 systematic reviews in our umbrella review. We were able to extract pooled prevalence estimates from these as follows: major depression 12% to 20%, any anxiety disorder 8%, generalized anxiety disorder 5%, panic disorder 3%, delirium 15%. We were only able to extract a prevalence range for dementia, which was 3% to 63%. We found no systematic reviews from which we could extract prevalence data for the other psychiatric disorders that we included in our searches, indicating important gaps. From these data, we estimated that approximately one-third of inpatients have a psychiatric disorder.

CONCLUSIONS

Psychiatric disorders are very common in general hospital inpatients. While the planning of consultation-liaison psychiatry services will benefit from more research on the prevalence of each of the full range of disorders encountered in the inpatient setting, our findings indicate that we already know enough to justify increased and more population-based service provision.

The prevalence of anxiety in general hospital inpatients: A systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE

To determine the prevalence of anxiety in general hospital inpatients by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of all relevant published studies.

METHOD

We searched Ovid Medline, Ovid Embase and Ovid PsycINFO from inception to December 2020. We included studies of the prevalence of anxiety symptoms of clinically significant severity (using cut-off scores on rating scales) and of the prevalence of anxiety disorders (using diagnostic interviews) in general hospital inpatients. Two independent reviewers assessed articles and extracted data. The review is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42020189722.

RESULTS

We included 32 studies. Pooled prevalence estimates in random-effects meta-analyses were: anxiety symptoms 28% (95% CI 19% to 38%, 95% prediction interval 5% to 72%), any anxiety disorder 8% (95% CI 5% to 12%, 95% prediction interval 2% to 33%), panic disorder 3% (95% CI 2% to 4%, 95% prediction interval 1% to 8%), generalized anxiety disorder 5% (95% CI 3% to 8%, 95% prediction interval 1% to 23%). There was high heterogeneity in prevalence, little of which was explained in exploratory analyses of a limited number of potential determinants.

CONCLUSION

Anxiety symptoms of clinically significant severity affect more than one in four inpatients and anxiety disorders affect nearly one in ten.

Major Depression and Survival in People With Cancer

OBJECTIVE

The question of whether depression is associated with worse survival in people with cancer remains unanswered because of methodological criticism of the published research on the topic. We aimed to study the association in a large methodologically robust study.

METHODS

We analyzed data on 20,582 patients with breast, colorectal, gynecological, lung, and prostate cancers who had attended cancer outpatient clinics in Scotland, United Kingdom. Patients had completed two-stage screening for major depression as part of their cancer care. These data on depression status were linked to demographic, cancer, and subsequent mortality data from national databases. We estimated the association of major depression with survival for each cancer using Cox regression. We adjusted for potential confounders and interactions between potentially time-varying confounders and the interval between cancer diagnosis and depression screening, and used multiple imputation for missing depression and confounder data. We pooled the cancer-specific results using fixed-effects meta-analysis.

RESULTS

Major depression was associated with worse survival for all cancers, with similar adjusted hazard ratios (HRs): breast cancer (HR = 1.42, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.15-1.75), colorectal cancer (HR = 1.47, 95% CI = 1.11-1.94), gynecological cancer (HR = 1.36, 95% CI = 1.08-1.71), lung cancer (HR = 1.39, 95% CI = 1.24-1.56), and prostate cancer (HR = 1.76, 95% CI = 1.08-2.85). The pooled HR was 1.41 (95% CI = 1.29-1.54, p < .001, I2 = 0%). These findings were not materially different when we only considered the deaths (90%) that were attributed to cancer.

CONCLUSIONS

Major depression is associated with worse survival in patients with common cancers. The mechanisms of this association and the clinical implications require further study.

Distinguishing psychogenic nonepileptic, mixed, and epileptic seizures using systemic measures and reported experiences

OBJECTIVES

Our primary objective was to better discern features that can differentiate people with 'mixed' symptomatology from those who experience epileptic seizures (ES) or functional/psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) alone, in a population of patients referred for video-telemetry. We wished to see if we could establish the prevalence of PNES in this population of interest as well as compare both objective (e.g. videotelemetry reports and heart rate measurements) and subjective, patient-centered measures (reported symptoms and experiences).

METHODS

Data were sourced from a database of all video-telemetry patients admitted to the John Radcliffe Hospital (Oxford, UK) between 1st Jan 2014 and 31st Jan 2016; video-electroencephalogram (vEEG) reports for the above patients; neurology clinic letters; multidisciplinary Team (MDT) reports; psychology assessments and patient notes for all vEEG patients referred for surgical work up. Mixed cases with a dual ES/PNES diagnosis were carefully evaluated again by the Consultant Neurologist under whose care each respective patient was, through case-by-case evaluation of EEG and telemetry reports. We compared mean heart rate during attacks captured on vEEG, number of physical symptoms reported, episode length, and postictal confusion between the three groups (ES; PNES; ES and PNES (mixed)). We evaluated the groups in terms of demographic and psychological parameters as well as prescription of anti-seizure medication. Pearson correlation significance was examined at 95% level of significance for p-values corrected for multiple comparisons.

RESULTS

Overall, mixed cases reported experiencing a significantly lower number of physical symptoms compared to PNES cases (p = 0.018). The heart rate of PNES cases was significantly lower than that of mixed cases during the attacks (p = 0.003). ES patients exhibited the highest heart rate of all three groups and a greater degree of postictal confusion (adjusted p = 0.003 and p < 0.001, respectively) compared to those with PNES. There was no statistically significant difference in episode length between mixed and ES cases, while PNES patients had significantly longer episode duration (p = 0.021) compared to the mixed group. We noted that 81.6% of PNES patients were taking at least one anti-seizure medication.

CONCLUSION

Patients with mixed seizures seem to be part of a spectrum between ES and PNES cases. Mixed cases are more similar to the ES group with regard to episode length and number of symptoms reported. In the PNES cohort, we found an over-reporting of ictal symptoms (e.g. palpitations, diaphoresis) disproportionate to recorded heart rate, which is lower in PNES than in epileptic attacks. This seems consistent with PNES cases experiencing a degree of impaired interoceptive processing, as part of a functional disorder spectrum. We noted that there was tendency for overmedication in the PNES group. The need for 'de-prescribing' should be addressed with measures that include better liaison with the community care team. With regard to potential autonomic dysregulation in the mixed cases, it might be interesting to see if vagus nerve stimulation could be accompanied by normalization of cardiovascular physiology parameters for people with both epileptic and psychogenic nonepileptic seizures.

Proactive Integrated Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry: A new service model for the psychiatric care of general hospital inpatients

OBJECTIVE

To describe a new service model for the psychiatric care of general hospital inpatients, called Proactive Integrated Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry ('Proactive Integrated Psychological Medicine' in the UK).

METHOD

The new service model was developed especially for general hospital inpatient populations with multimorbidity, such as older medical inpatients. Its design was informed by the published literature and the clinical experience of C-L psychiatrists. It was operationalized by a process of iterative piloting.

RESULTS

The rationale for the new model and the principles underpinning it are outlined. Details of how to implement it, including a service manual and associated workbook, are provided. The training of clinicians to deliver it is described. The effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of this new service model is being evaluated. Whilst we have found it feasible to deliver and well-accepted by ward teams, potential challenges to its wider implementation are discussed.

CONCLUSION

Proactive Integrated Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (PICLP) is a fusion of proactive consultation and integrated care, operationalized in a field-tested service manual. Initial experience indicates that it is feasible to deliver. Its effectiveness and cost effectiveness for older patients on acute medical wards is currently being evaluated in a large multicentre randomized controlled trial (The HOME Study).

The HOME Study: Statistical and economic analysis plan for a randomised controlled trial comparing the addition of Proactive Psychological Medicine to usual care, with usual care alone, on the time spent in hospital by older acute hospital inpatients

BACKGROUND

Prolonged acute hospital stays are a problem for older people and for health services. Failure to effectively manage the psychological and social aspects of illness is an important cause of prolonged hospital stay. Proactive Psychological Medicine (PPM) is a new way of providing psychiatry services to medical wards which is proactive, focussed, intensive and integrated with medical care. The primary aim of PPM is to reduce the time older people spend in hospital because of unmanaged psychological and social problems. The HOME Study will test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of PPM.

METHODS/DESIGN

The study is a two-arm, parallel-group, randomised, controlled superiority trial with linked health economic analysis and an embedded process evaluation. The target population is people aged 65 years and older admitted to acute hospitals. Participants will be randomly allocated to either usual care plus PPM or usual care alone. The primary outcome is the number of days spent as an inpatient in a general hospital in the month following randomisation. Secondary outcomes include quality of life, cognitive function, independent functioning, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and experience of hospital stay. The cost-effectiveness of usual care plus PPM compared with usual care alone will be assessed using quality-adjusted life-years as an outcome as well as costs from the NHS perspective.

DISCUSSION

This update to the published trial protocol gives a detailed plan of the statistical and economic analysis of The HOME Study.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ISRCTN registry, ISRCTN86120296. Registered on 3 January 2018.

The HOME Study: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial comparing the addition of Proactive Psychological Medicine to usual care, with usual care alone, on the time spent in hospital by older acute hospital inpatients

BACKGROUND

Prolonged acute hospital stays are a major problem for older people and for health services. Failure to effectively manage the psychological and social aspects of illness is an important cause of prolonged hospital stays. Proactive Psychological Medicine (PPM) is a new way of providing psychiatry services to medical wards. PPM is proactive, focussed, intensive and integrated with medical care. A major aim of PPM is to reduce the time older people spend in hospital because of unmanaged psychological and social problems. The HOME Study will test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of PPM.

METHODS/DESIGN

A two-arm parallel-group randomised controlled superiority trial, with a linked health economic analysis and an embedded process evaluation, will be conducted at three sites. A total of 3588 participants will be recruited and randomised to usual care or usual care plus PPM. The primary outcome is the number of days spent as an inpatient in a general hospital in the month (30 days) post-randomisation. Secondary outcomes for each participant (measured at 1 and 3 months) include quality of life, independent functioning, symptoms of anxiety and depression, cognitive function, and their experience of the hospital stay.

DISCUSSION

The trial has been designed to produce findings that are generalisable to all older medical inpatients (including those with cognitive impairment). It will provide information on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of PPM, which we hope will be of value to patients, clinicians, managers and service planners.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ISRCTN86120296 . Registered on 3 January 2018.

Building the capacity of policy-makers and planners to strengthen mental health systems in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

Background

Little is known about the interventions required to build the capacity of mental health policy-makers and planners in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We conducted a systematic review with the primary aim of identifying and synthesizing the evidence base for building the capacity of policy-makers and planners to strengthen mental health systems in LMICs.

Methods

We searched MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Knowledge, Web of Science, Scopus, CINAHL, LILACS, ScieELO, Google Scholar and Cochrane databases for studies reporting evidence, experience or evaluation of capacity-building of policy-makers, service planners or managers in mental health system strengthening in LMICs. Reports in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French or German were included. Additional papers were identified by hand-searching references and contacting experts and key informants. Database searches yielded 2922 abstracts and 28 additional papers were identified. Following screening, 409 full papers were reviewed, of which 14 fulfilled inclusion criteria for the review. Data were extracted from all included papers and synthesized into a narrative review.

Results

Only a small number of mental health system-related capacity-building interventions for policy-makers and planners in LMICs were described. Most models of capacity-building combined brief training with longer term mentorship, dialogue and/or the establishment of networks of support. However, rigorous research and evaluation methods were largely absent, with studies being of low quality, limiting the potential to separate mental health system strengthening outcomes from the effects of associated contextual factors.

Conclusions

This review demonstrates the need for partnership approaches to building the capacity of mental health policy-makers and planners in LMICs, assessed rigorously against pre-specified conceptual frameworks and hypotheses, utilising longitudinal evaluation and mixed quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1853-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Should junior doctors strike?

An impasse in negotiations between the Department of Health (DoH) and the British Medical Association in November this year led to an overwhelming vote for industrial action (IA) by junior doctors. At the time of writing, a last minute concession by DoH led to a deferment of IA to allow further negotiations mediated by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. However, IA by junior doctors remains a possibility if these negotiations stall again. Would the proposed action be ethically justifiable? Furthermore, is IA by doctors ever ethically defendable? Building on previous work, we explore important ethical considerations for doctors considering IA. The primary moral objection to doctors striking is often claimed to be risk of harm to patients. Other common arguments against IA by doctors include breaching their vocational responsibilities and possible damage to their relationship with patients and the public in general. These positions are in turn countered by claims of a greater long-term good and the legal and moral rights of employees to strike. Absolute restrictions appear to be hard to justify in the modern context, as does an unrestricted right to IA. We review these arguments, find that some common moral objections to doctors striking may be less relevant to the current situation, that a stronger contemporary objection to IA might be from a position of social justice and suggest criteria for ethically permissible doctor IA.

Inflammatory skin and bowel disease linked to ADAM17 deletion

We performed genetic and immunohistochemical studies in a sister and brother with autosomal recessive neonatal inflammatory skin and bowel lesions. The girl died suddenly at 12 years of age from parvovirus B19-associated myocarditis; her brother had mild cardiomyopathy. We identified a loss-of-function mutation in ADAM17, which encodes a disintegrin and metalloproteinase 17 (also called tumor necrosis factor α [TNF-α]-converting enzyme, or TACE), as the probable cause of this syndrome. Peripheral-blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) obtained from the brother at 17 years of age showed high levels of lipopolysaccharide-induced production of interleukin-1β and interleukin-6 but impaired release of TNF-α. Despite repeated skin infections, this young man has led a relatively normal life. (Funded by Barts and the London Charity and the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme.).