A systematic review of studies of the cost-effectiveness of mental health consultation-liaison interventions in general hospitals.

A systematic review of cost-effectiveness analyses of mental health consultation-liaison interventions in general hospitals was conducted. Few studies have evaluated the cost-effectiveness of consultation-liaison interventions, and only two articles met the criteria for inclusion in the review. The comparable variable was length of the hospital stay. It could not be concluded that psychiatric consultation had an effect on the duration of hospital stays. In one of the studies, the group that received psychiatric consultation showed improvement in depressive symptoms. Additional studies would have been relevant to this review if they had replicated clinical practice by using a naturalistic research design.