Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
3
pubmed:dateCreated
1983-1-7
pubmed:abstractText
There have been many accounts of depression and abnormal illness behavior in medical inpatients, but systematic studies of their prevalence and features in a general hospital are lacking. Occurrence and characteristics of depression and illness behavior were studied in 325 inpatients of a general hospital in the northern part of Italy. Patients were surveyed in six separate wards (medicine, surgery, dermatology, OB-GYN, orthopedics, and ophthalmology) and represented about 90% of their actual population during a one-week period. Two self-report scales were used for screening: the CES-D (scale devised by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies of Depression at NIMH) for measuring depression and the Illness Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ), developed by Pilowsky and Spence. Both scales were administered in their validated Italian translations. The customary cut-off point of 16 in the CES-D score revealed about 58% of the patients as depressed. A more conservative cut-off point of 23 still showed 33.5% of the patients as depressed. The IBQ scores of the depressed patients showed significantly (p less than 0.001) higher levels of general hypochondriasis, disease conviction, dysphoria, and irritability than the nondepressed patients. No relevant differences existed between wards in the amount of depression and IBQ scores, even when differences were adjusted for age, sex, marital status, and social class. Implications for psychosomatic research (sociodemographic characteristics of depression and illness behavior, bias in comparing hospital patients and controls in the general population, and so on) and treatment (consultation-liaison psychiatry) are discussed.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Sep
pubmed:issn
0163-8343
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:volume
4
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
171-8
pubmed:dateRevised
2004-11-17
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
1982
pubmed:articleTitle
Depressive symptoms and abnormal illness behavior in general hospital patients.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article