Consultation liaison psychiatry in Africa - essential service or unaffordable luxury?

Abstract

Consultation liaison psychiatry (CLP) - also known as psychosomatic medicine - is the psychiatric subspecialty that focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders/difficulties in complex medically ill patients. “Complex medically ill”1 are patients with active medical, neurological, obstetrical or surgical condition(s) or symptoms, who also meet one of the following criteria: • Patients with an acute or chronic medical, neurological, or surgical illness in which psychiatric morbidity is actively affecting their medical care and/or quality of life. Examples include acute or chronic psychiatric patients with HIV infection, organ transplantation, brittle diabetes, heart disease, renal failure, a terminal illness, cancer, stroke, traumatic brain injury, COPD, high-risk pregnancy, among others. • Patients with a somatoform disorder or with psychological factors affecting a physical condition (“psychosomatic condition”) • Patients with a psychiatric disorder that is the direct consequence of a primary medical condition