Attitudes of pediatricians toward psychiatric consultations.

This study attempts to evaluate the psychiatric consultation services in both a university and a non-university children's hospital by requesting opinions from 121 pediatricians. A 26-item questionnaire asked pediatricians to comment on the percentage of their patients with psychological problems and their level of ease in dealing with them, problems making psychiatric referrals, and their level of satisfaction with psychiatric consultations and other consultation activities. There were no significant differences between the attitudes of physicians from the two hospitals. Overall, the level of satisfaction was very low, indicating a need for a better working relationship between pediatric and child psychiatry units. There appears to be a high level of readiness on the pediatricians' side to enhance the relationship between the two clinical disciplines.