Consultation-Liaison Telepsychiatry: A Coded Thematic Analysis of Clinicians' Reported Experiences.

BACKGROUND: Telepsychiatry is now common practice. Within consultation-liaison psychiatry (CLP), previous work has shown that telepsychiatry is feasible and satisfactory. To date, there has not been qualitative work done within CLP to describe the clinician's experience with telepsychiatry. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to perform a thematic analysis of clinicians' perceived benefits and limitations of providing telepsychiatry in CLP. METHODS: An anonymous clinician survey querying demographics, education, training, technological experience, and practice characteristics was distributed via social media and professional listservs, the quantitative results of which are presented elsewhere. Two questions (What was the best/worst aspect of adapting to telepsychiatry?) required free-text responses; comments were allowed elsewhere. We performed a thematic analysis of the text responses because of its flexibility and ability to develop new insights. We synthesized and generated a codebook iteratively. Initial coding was completed by 3 co-authors independently, followed by discussion to build consensus. We used qualitative content analysis to better understand common trends and frequencies in the data. Saturation of themes was reached. RESULTS: A total of 333 behavioral health clinicians completed the survey, including 197 CLP participants. Most respondents (98.5%) responded to at least 1 open-answer question, with 314 reporting the worst aspects of telepsychiatry and 315 reporting the best aspects. Respondents made insightful comments about boundaries, public health implications, and the need for training. We categorized the results into implications for practice, therapeutic relationship, and uniquely affected populations. CONCLUSIONS: These results show that telepsychiatry has both unique benefits and limitations within CLP. Our work examines and describes these nuances. We believe that future use of telepsychiatry will be synergistic with in-person care and that the 2 modalities will be used together to maximize benefits. A public health focus on improving Internet access and simplifying interstate licensure would improve equitable access and utilization of outpatient telepsychiatry. Telepsychiatry can be successful for inpatient Consultation-Liaison work but requires thoughtful triage and teamwork.

Survey of Clinician Experiences of Telepsychiatry and Tele-Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic created pressure to implement telepsychiatry across practice models. OBJECTIVE: We sought to evaluate the overall success of this change and to identify what types of practice settings, provider groups, and patient groups were best served by telepsychiatry and telepsychotherapy utilization. We were particularly interested in how providers of consultation-liaison psychiatry adapted to remote care. METHODS: An anonymous provider survey querying demographics, education, training, technological experience, practice setting, treatment modalities, patient groups, transition process, and outcomes was made openly available via social media and professional listservs. We used multivariable regression modeling to evaluate for predictors of the positive outcomes of overall satisfaction, subjective ability to diagnose and treat patients adequately using exclusively telepsychiatric platforms, and patient satisfaction by proxy. RESULTS: Three hundred thirty-three respondents, mostly young (59.4% younger than 50 years), female (69.7%), and physicians (67.9%), completed the survey. One hundred ninety-seven (59.1%) worked in consultation-liaison psychiatry. Of the total, 85.9% gave affirmative answers to overall satisfaction. Multivariable linear regression models found that satisfaction was predicted by general comfort with technology (P < 0.001), but negatively correlated with having technical issues (P < 0.001), a priori skepticism (P < 0.001), clinician being male (P = 0.004), and treating LGBTQ+ patients (P = 0.022). Completeness was associated with having training in telehealth (P = 0.039) and general comfort with technology (P < 0.001) but negatively associated with treating LGBTQ+ patients (P = 0.024) or inpatients (P = 0.002). Patient satisfaction by proxy was positively associated with general comfort with technology (P < 0.001) and the respondent being a nonphysician (P = 0.004) and negatively associated with encountering a technical issue (P = 0.013) or treating inpatients (P = 0.045). Consultation-liaison psychiatrists had similar results overall and were more likely to have other staff assist in making televisits effective (mean [standard deviation]: -1.25 [3.57] versus -2.76 [3.27], P < 0.001) especially if consultative (mean [standard deviation]: -0.87 [3.67] versus -2.39 [3.01], P = 0.010). CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests high rates of overall satisfaction in telepsychiatry adoption, even in consultation-liaison psychiatry. There is distinct benefit in bolstering training, providing technical support, and addressing skepticism. Future research should include patient surveys and control groups and should focus on vulnerable populations such as sexual and gender minorities.

The Only Thing I Have to Fear Is Fear Itself.

This autobiographical essay provides a discussion of how understanding being counterphobic limited the physician's ability to be realistically afraid during the intial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Evaluation of a Symptom-triggered Protocol for Alcohol Withdrawal for Use in the Emergency Department, General Medical Wards, and Intensive Care Unit.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol withdrawal is common in hospitalized patients and symptom-triggered guidelines have been shown to reduce treatment duration, length of stay, and need for mechanical ventilation. OBJECTIVES: To assess the feasibility of incorporating symptom-triggered alcohol withdrawal guidelines early in the hospital course and to evaluate outcomes of patients before and after implementation of the guidelines. METHODS: This was a retrospective pre-post study of adult patients admitted from the emergency department to an urban, academic, tertiary care center. Subjects in the preguideline (PRE) group were given benzodiazepines in a nonprotocolized manner at the discretion of the treating physician, whereas subjects in the postguideline (POST) group were treated according to the alcohol withdrawal guidelines with treatment beginning in the emergency department. RESULTS: The PRE group involved 113 admissions for severe alcohol withdrawal and the POST group involved 103 admissions for severe alcohol withdrawal. The median benzodiazepine dose per day, in milligrams of chlordiazepoxide, was higher in the POST group (100 mg in the PRE group vs. 141 mg in the POST group; P<0.02). A higher percentage of patients in the POST group were admitted to the intensive care unit (4.4% in the PRE group vs. 12.6% in the POST group; P=0.05); however, more patients in the PRE group than in the POST group received continuous intravenous sedation and mechanical ventilation, although the difference was not statistically significant (P=0.37 for both variables). There was no difference between the 2 groups in length of stay in the intensive care unit or hospital or discharge disposition. CONCLUSIONS: Incorporating symptom-triggered guidelines for alcohol withdrawal early in the hospital course at a large medical center is feasible. This approach may result in increased benzodiazepine use, but it seems that it is safe and does not result in adverse outcomes.

S-Adenosylmethionine (SAMe) for Neuropsychiatric Disorders: A Clinician-Oriented Review of Research.

OBJECTIVE: A systematic review on S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe) for treatment of neuropsychiatric conditions and comorbid medical conditions. DATA SOURCES: Searches were conducted in PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, and Google Scholar databases between July 15, 2015, and September 28, 2016, by combining search terms for SAMe (s-adenosyl methionine or s-adenosyl-l-methionine) with terms for relevant disease states (major depressive disorder, MDD, depression, perinatal depression, human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia, anxiety, schizophrenia, psychotic, 22q11.2, substance abuse, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, hepatitis, or cirrhosis). Additional studies were identified from prior literature. Ongoing clinical trials were identified through clinical trial registries. STUDY SELECTION: Of the 174 records retrieved, 21 were excluded, as they were not original investigations. An additional 21 records were excluded for falling outside the scope of this review. Of the 132 studies included in this review, 115 were clinical trials and 17 were preclinical studies. DATA EXTRACTION: A wide range of studies was included in this review to capture information that would be of interest to psychiatrists in clinical practice. RESULTS: This review of SAMe in the treatment of major depressive disorder found promising but limited evidence of efficacy and safety to support its use as a monotherapy and as an augmentation for other antidepressants. Additionally, preliminary evidence suggests that SAMe may ameliorate symptoms in certain neurocognitive, substance use, and psychotic disorders and comorbid medical conditions. CONCLUSIONS: S-adenosylmethionine holds promise as a treatment for multiple neuropsychiatric conditions, but the body of evidence has limitations. The encouraging findings support further study of SAMe in both psychiatric and comorbid medical illnesses.

Co-managed Care for Medical Inpatients, C-L vs C/L Psychiatry.

OBJECTIVE: We report on a quality improvement program to co-manage patients with co-morbid medical and psychiatric disorders in the general hospital. A philanthropic donation allowed a high volume, high-acuity urban hospital to hire a co-managing inpatient psychiatrist. The expectation was that facilitating psychiatric evaluation/treatment of medical patients would result in fewer patients staying beyond the expected length of stay (LOS). METHOD: The psychiatrist became a member of a general medical team working with a group of internists and actively co-managing medical patients. After one year, we compared time-to-consultation request and LOS for patients seen through the traditional Consultation-Liaison model and patients seen through the co-managed care model. A second co-managing psychiatrist was hired. A new QI project investigated reduction in lost days. RESULTS: There was a decrease in LOS for patients seen in the co-managed care model when compared with those seen via the traditional Consultation-Liaison model. Co-managed patients were seen earlier in the hospitalization. Excluding very-long-stay outliers, there was a reduction in LOS of 1.19 days (p < 0.003). There was an estimated annualized saving to the hospital of 2889 patient days. CONCLUSIONS: A program of co-managed care reduced both LOS and lost days to the hospital. This resulted in an increase in hospital support to hire 2.5 full-time equivalent psychiatrists and 1.0 full-time equivalent social worker for the Consultation-Liaison service. Such programs may permit the return of modernized psychiatric liaison programs to medical and surgical services.

Major Depressive Disorder: Understanding the Significance of Residual Symptoms and Balancing Efficacy with Tolerability.

INTRODUCTION: Major depressive disorder is a complex and frequent psychiatric condition that poses significant challenges to both the patients who experience it and the physicians who treat them. The goal of therapy is for patients to achieve remission, which requires identifying and measuring symptoms at the outset and throughout treatment to document both response and resistance to treatment. A number of validated instruments are available both for diagnosis of and response to treatment. Many factors affect a patient's ability to achieve remission, but although many patients do achieve remission, a significant number continue to have residual symptoms that cause functional impairment. METHODS: Review of the literature for treatment of major depression, including mechanisms of action, individualized treatment optimization, residual symptom reduction, and minimization of side effects. RESULTS: For sustained remission, all symptoms must be treated until they are undetectable. Patients who do not achieve remission after adequate treatment trials should be evaluated for adherence to treatment, as well as comorbid psychiatric and medical disorders. In these cases, consideration should be given to changing therapy by switching, combining, or augmenting initial therapy, as well as referring some patients to a psychiatrist for treatment with specialized modalities. Linking symptoms with malfunctioning brain circuits and neurotransmitters provides a targeted approach for achieving sustained remission. Neurobiology also provides a rational basis for combination therapy in patients with treatment-resistant depression, because it can aid selection of different drugs with different mechanisms of action or of multifunctional/multimodal antidepressant drugs that target more than 1 molecular mechanism. DISCUSSION: Recent advances and better understanding of neurobiology provide a rational basis for individualizing treatment of patients with major depression.

Progressive paranoid psychosis in a 20-year-old with central congenital hypoventilation syndrome.

A 20-year-old man with a history of congenital central hypoventilation syndrome presented with recent-onset psychosis, catatonia, and a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Psychiatric symptoms were resistant to conventional treatment. A fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography scan of the brain obtained during the hospitalization revealed a hypometabolism distribution more consistent with hypoperfusion than with primary central nervous system disease. Increased mechanical ventilation was successfully used to treat the psychiatric symptoms.

How do you know your consult service is doing a good job? Generating performance measures for C-L service effectiveness.

BACKGROUND: There is no consensus in the literature on measures for evaluating the performance of general hospital Consultation-Liaison psychiatry services. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate what indicators might be used to this end. METHODS: We surveyed United States Psychosomatic Medicine fellowship directors (n = 53) about the use of performance measures for their psychiatric consultation services. Results of this survey led to the construction of a second survey, which was distributed to the representatives of services calling for psychiatric consultations at our hospital (n = 21); this survey sought to determine the importance of various performance parameters to overall consultee satisfaction. RESULTS: Sixty-three percent of responding psychiatric consult services do not use any of the parameters identified in the literature as performance measures. Consultee satisfaction was endorsed as a valuable performance indicator by 67.7% of them, but no satisfaction rating instrument was identified. The internal survey of consultees identified 11 of 16 candidate parameters as important or very important to consultee satisfaction, of which "consultant understands the core situation and the core question being asked" received the highest rating. CONCLUSIONS: Consultee satisfaction is perceived as a useful global measure of the effectiveness of a psychiatric consult service. We elicited parameters that can be used to create a measurement tool for consultee satisfaction with Consultation-Liaison services. The use of such a tool merits testing in a larger multicenter study.

Managing the patient with psychiatric issues in dermatologic practice.

Patients often communicate emotions through their bodies and physical symptoms; the skin commonly serves as a means of expression in the patient-doctor relationship. It is important for the dermatologist to be able to indentify psychological issues that manifest in the skin and the interplay between psychiatric and dermatologic conditions. Delusional parasitosis, dermatitis artefacta, trichotillomania, and somatoform disorders all represent dermatologic conditions with underlying emotional causes. Many chronic dermatoses, such as psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and acne, modulate and are influenced by psychosocial factors. Special issues, including significant medication interactions and the treatment of the "difficult" patient, are reviewed.

Physician staffing for the practice of psychosomatic medicine in general hospitals: a pilot study.

BACKGROUND: The treatment of psychiatric illnesses, prevalent in the general hospital, requires broadly trained providers with expertise at the interface of psychiatry and medicine. Since each hospital operates under different economic constraints, it is difficult to establish an appropriate ratio of such providers to patients. OBJECTIVE: The authors sought to determine the current staffing patterns and ratios of Psychosomatic Medicine practitioners in general hospitals, to better align manpower with clinical service and educational requirements on consultation-liaison psychiatry services. METHOD: Program directors of seven academic Psychosomatic Medicine (PM) programs in the Northeast were surveyed to establish current staffing patterns and patient volumes. Survey data were reviewed and analyzed along with data from the literature and The Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine (APM) fellowship directory. RESULTS: Staffing patterns varied widely, both in terms of the number and disciplines of staff providing care for medical and surgical inpatients. The ratio of initial consultations performed per hospital bed varied from 1.6 to 4.6. CONCLUSION: Although staffing patterns vary, below a minimum staffing level, there is likely to be significant human and financial cost. Efficient sizing of a PM staff must be accomplished in the context of a given institution's patient population, the experience of providers, the presence/absence and needs of trainees, and the financial constraints of the department and institution. National survey data are needed to provide benchmarks for both academic and nonacademic PM services.

An approach to the patient with multiple physical symptoms or chronic disease.

Doctors diagnose and treat disease; illness is the experience of, and response to, a disease by patients and the people in their lives. Discrepancies between disease and illness (eg, adjustment to the sick role, treatment-related difficulties, denial of medical illness, and psychiatric comorbidity) are prevalent, as are somatoform disorders and other conditions in which patients are invested in being understood as medically ill. This article reviews suggestions for physicians' responses to these patients and their dilemmas.