Liaison Old Age Psychiatry Service in a Medical Setting: Description of the Newcastle Clinical Service

Table 3

Reasons for referrals and completed assessments. ^‡Discharged before referral received. Please note that the statistical analysis refers only to the referred and assessed rates for 2005/2006 year. For this, we have used nonparametric analysis (Chi-square test) to test for the differences between referred and assessed sample proportions. Only significant values are presented in the table. 𝑁refers to number of referrals.

Requested assessment	2009/2010; referrals (%); 𝑁=789	2008/2009; referrals (%); 𝑁=1005	2005/2006; referrals (%); 𝑁=731	2005/2006 assessments (%)	𝜒^2 test; 𝑃-value
Mood	259 (32.8%)	259 (25.8%)	209 (28.6%)	205 (28.0%)	NS
Future care	166 (21.0%)	167 (16.6%)	182 (24.9%)	163 (22.3%)	NS
Cognition	385 (48.8%)	282 (28.1%)	139 (19.0%)	126 (17.2%)	NS
Medication advice*	136 (17.2%)	75 (7.5%)	116 (15.9%)	143 (19.6%)	NS
Behavioural problems	131 (16.6%)	103 (10.3%)	109 (14.9%)	100 (13.7%)	NS
Capacity	63 (8%)	57 (5.7%)	79 (10.8%)	60 (8.2%)	NS
Psychosis	32 (4.1%)	16 (1.6%)	48 (6.6%)	40 (5.5%)	NS
Diagnosis	20 (2.5%)	32 (3.2%)	47 (6.4%)	36 (4.9%)	NS
Delirium	20 (2.5%)	16 (1.6%)	24 (3.3%)	23 (3.2%)	NS
Anxiety	32 (4.1%)	18 (1.8%)	20 (2.7%)	17 (2.3%)	NS
Suicidality	18 (2.3%)	7 (0.7%)	13 (1.8%)	11 (1.5%)	NS
Social issues	0 (0.0%)	0 (0.0%)	60 (8.2%)	124 (17.0%)	𝜒^2=25.37; 𝑃=0.001
Not seen	19 (2.4%)	21 (2.1%)	3 (0.4%)^‡	118 (16.1%)	𝜒^2=125.72; 𝑃=0.001
Other	20 (2.5%)	31 (3.1%)	11 (1.5%)	19 (2.6%)	NS
Total requests/assessments	1272	1065	1038	1185	𝜒^2=3.731; 𝑃=0.0534