Resumen de Epidemiological Perspectives in Psychosomatic and Liaison Psychiatry

Antonio Lobo Satué, Ricardo Campos, Elena Lobo

• Psychosomatic and liaison psychiatry is intended to be the contribution from psychiatry to the general field of medicine. The philosophical support for the discipline comes from both the traditional humanistic, medical view and the empirical or evidence-based approach. In relation to this approach, we state that epidemiological research is crucial for the development of the discipline. In this chapter we present examples of the contribution of epidemiology to document the prevalence and incidence of psychiatric morbidity in medical settings, for the establishment of the outcome, for the actuarial assessment of morbid risk, for the efficacy of the treatment of psychiatric problems in medical patients, and even for the conceptual construction of diagnosis and classification.There is abundant evidence in the literature documenting the size of the problem of psychiatric morbidity in medical patients. This evidence offers support for the needs of specific psychiatric services. Further evidence is provided by ambitious, longitudinal studies of outcome documenting the negative implications of the psychiatric morbidity, which offer strong support for specific interventions. Risk factor studies are particularly ambitious, and they certainly may need longitudinal designs, but it is worth trying, since the documentation of risk has etiological implications and this is crucial for prevention in the field. Finally, it is important to recognize that both randomized trials and research relevant for the classification in the field are also influenced by epidemiological methods.