Abstract
Comorbidity between mental disorders and physical illnesses is the rule rather than the exception. Approaches to study the impact of comorbidity become challenging also due to lack of consensus about how to define and measure the concept of comorbidity. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the clinical profile of medical comorbidity among a group of local chronic elderly schizophrenic patients to see their prevalence and physiognomies.
Highlights
Comorbidity between mental disorders and physical illnesses is the rule rather than the exception
89% (n=151) of the elderly patients had some kind of registered non-psychiatric co-morbidity, which was meaningful higher than the frequency of comorbidity among a senior group of local residents
Mean age (±SD) of the patients were around 69.12±8.93 and 74.69±6.54 for male and female patients, respectively, which was significantly shorter for male patients [t=-4.383, p
Summary
Comorbidity between mental disorders and physical illnesses is the rule rather than the exception. Approaches to study the impact of comorbidity become challenging due to lack of consensus about how to define and measure the concept of comorbidity. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the clinical profile of medical comorbidity among a group of local chronic elderly schizophrenic patients to see their prevalence and physiognomies. Comorbidity between mental disorders and physical sicknesses is the rule rather than the exception [1]. It is estimated that 25% of the adult population have mental health illness, 68% of them suffer from comorbid medical disease [2]. The term comorbidity has three meanings: a) Indicating a medical sickness in a patient existing concurrently but independently with another condition
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