Psychiatric morbidity among adult patients at the medical and surgical emergency departments of a Nigerian teaching hospital

Objective: The study was conducted to determine the prevalence and pattern of psychiatric morbidity in patients seen at a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital's medical and surgical emergency department.Method: A two-stage cross-sectional descriptive study used a systematic sampling of all consenting patients admitted into the medical and surgical emergency. Six hundred and three patients who met the inclusion criteria and completed a socio-demographic questionnaire and the General Health Questionnaire 12 (GHQ-12) were analyzed. Patients who met the cut-off score of 3 or more on the GHQ-12 and a 20% random sample with GHQ-12 score <3 were further subjected to a definite diagnostic assessment using the Mini International Neuropsychiatry Interview and were diagnosed according to the 10th version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) criteria.Result: The mean age of respondents was 45±19 years, 63.3% were males, and 71.8% were married. Patients at the medical emergency constituted 53.2%. The weighted prevalence of psychiatric morbidity among medical emergency patients was 21.5% and 17.4% for patients at the surgical emergency. Depressive disorder was the commonest in both wards.Conclusion: Some patients presenting to medical and surgical emergencies have co-existing psychiatric disorders. Conscious efforts should be made to recognize psychiatric disorders among patients with physical illnesses, improving their quality of care and contributing to better outcomes.