The detection of psychiatric illness and psychological handicaps in a British pain clinic population

Abstract

Ninety-seven successive patients attending the Newcastle Pain Relief Clinic completed a battery of psychiatric, psychological and pain questionnaires, and an extensive personal information form. All patients were seen by a physician who evaluated the extent of the pain arising from physical, psychiatric and psychological causes, and by a psychiatrist, who administered a structured interview schedule. Thirty-two percent of the patients had sufficient symptoms to be classified as psychiatric cases on the Present State Examination (PSE), a further 22% had minor neurotic symptoms and features of illness behaviour, 35% were categorized as organic, and 11% were unclassified. The Leeds General Depression Scale for Depression and Anxiety and the Beck Depression Inventory were the most effective of the psychiatric questionnaires used in separating the psychiatric patients from the remainder, and can be recommended as screening instruments for psychiatric illness in this population. Factors associated with a psychiatric diagnosis included female sex, larger number of present medications, greater reduction in activities compared to the period before the pain developed and increasing subjective pain from the onset of this.