Patients with Eye Symptoms and No Organic Illness: An Interdisciplinary Study

Abstract

The eyes and the visual functions receive great emotional investment. Ophthalmologists often overlook the emotional aspects of eye disease and overdiagnose hysteria in their patients. This project was a combined psychiatric and ophthalmologic study of patients without organic eye disease who presented with symptoms at an outpatient ophthalmology clinic. These patients differed from ordinary eye patients by age (younger), duration of symptoms (longer), and type of chief complaint (nonvisual). A large number of these patients were felt to have significant psychiatric illness, although the presence of organic eye illness did not protect against psychiatric difficulty. Tubular visual fields, like any conversion symptoms, are not diagnostic of hysteria. Greater use of the psychiatric consultant is urged.