One hundred and six consecutively seen psychiatric patients who had undergone detailed evaluation had their diagnosis compared with that arrived at in a walk-in evaluation one week to one month prior to the index evaluation. There was a diagnostic change in 21 cases and a change in drugs in 14. The pitfalls of this method for administering rapid efficient psychiatric care in countries with inadequate psychiatric manpower are highlighted.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Amara, I.B. (1978) Consistency in the diagnosis of functional psychosis . Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal, 23, 329-336.
2.
Andreasen, N.C., Grove, W.M., Shapiro, R.W., Keller, M.B., Hirschfeld, M.A. & McDonald-Scott, P. (1981) Reliability of life time diagnosis—multi—centre collaborative perspective. Archives of General Psychiatry,38, 400-407.
3.
Babigian, H.M., Gardner, E.A., Miles, H.C. & Romano, J. (1965) Diagnostic consistency and change in a follow up study of 1215 patients. American Journal of Psychiatry,121, 895-901.
4.
Cooper, J.E. (1967) Diagnostic change in a longitudinal study of psychiatric patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 113, 129-142.
5.
Garvey, M.J. & Tuason, V.B. (1980) Mania misdiagnosed as schizophrenia. Journal ofClinical Psychiatry, 41, 75-78.
6.
Ibe, E.O. & Barton, J.L. (1980) Schizophrenia to manic depression: a mutation or misdiagnosis. American Journal of Psychiatry,137, 742-743.
7.
Jakubaschk, J. & Hurry, J. (1977) Diagnosis in the Camberwell register—a cumulative psychiatric case register. Schweiz Archives ofNeurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 120, 243-255.
8.
Kaelbling, R. & Volpe, P.A. (1963) Constancy of psychiatric diagnosis in readmissions . Comprehensive Psychiatry, 4, 29-38.
9.
Kendell, R.E. (1974). The stability of psychiatric diagnosis. British Journal of Psychiatry, 124, 352-356.
10.
Murthy, R.S., Wig, N.N. & Ghosh, A. (1977) Drop-outs from a psychiatric walk-in clinic. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 19/2, 11-7.
11.
Rani, P.S., SENTHILNATHAN, S.M., PAI, S. & SHARIEF, I.A. (1986) Factors influencing admission of psychiatric patients at walk-in clinic. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 9, 9-16.
12.
Ray, R., Beig, M.A. & Gopinath, P.S. (1982) Walk-in clinic dropouts . International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 28, 279-284.
13.
Ray, R. & Chowdhury, J.R. (1984) Stability of psychiatric diagnosis. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 26, 164-168.
14.
Ray, R., Gopinath, P.S. & Beig, M.A. (1983) Customer approach and walk-in clinic dropout phenomena . International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 29, 118-126.
15.
Robins, E., Gentry, K.A., Munoz, R.A. & Martin, S. (1977) A contrast of three more common illnesses with the ten less common in a study and 18 month follow up of 314 psychiatric emergency room patients. II Findings at follow up. Archives of General Psychiatry,34, 285-291.
16.
Ward, C.H., Beck, A.T., Mendelson, M., Mock, J.E. & Erbaugh, J.K. (1962) The psychiatric nomenclature: reasons for diagnostic disagreement. Archives of General Psychiatry,7, 198-205.
17.
World Health Organisation (1975) International classification of diseases, 9th revision. Geneva: WHO.
18.
Yassa, R., Ghadirian, A.M. & Schwartz, G. (1983) Prevalence of tardive dyskinesia in affective disorder patients. Journal ofClinical Psychiatry, 44, 410-412.
19.
Zubin, J. (1967) Classification of behaviour disorders. Annual Review ofPsychology, 18, 373-406.
