RESUMO
The main question examined by this study is: do psychiatric patients communicate their worries more accurately to nurses than to other patients? The study also looked into the relationship between sex and diagnosis of patients' illness on the one hand, and the number of worries reported on the other. Subjects interviewed were in-patients who had stabilised in the ward. The patients, as well as nurses and colleague patients they nominated, used the "Hospital Patients Worry Inventory" to describe the things patients worry about while in hospital. The results showed that in terms of overall accuracy, other patients were more accurate than nurses in reporting a patient's worries. Males and patients diagnosed as schizophrenic and manic reported a higher number of worries than females and patients diagnosed as depressed. Nurses in this study under-estimated the number of worries experienced by patients. The findings were discussed in the light of the importance of informal medium of communication in the assessment and treatment of psychiatric patients.