Organic mental disorders in the consultation-liaison psychiatry setting. A multi-site study.

Interventions recommended by consultation-liaison psychiatrists for inpatients they diagnosed as having DSM-III-R organic mental disorder (OMD) were studied to see to what extent specific variables distinguished the OMD patients and differentiated the subgroups of patients with OMD. Prospective data and Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) scores on 625 consecutive referrals at 3 general hospitals in Australia and the United States were collected by using the MICRO-CARES database system. The OMD group differed from the other patients because they were significantly more likely to have been referred for "organic brain syndrome" or "agitation," had less mood disorder and lower MMSE scores, and received more recommendations for antipsychotics and for ward-environment manipulation and fewer recommendations for psychological management. The many differences among the OMD subgroups were also consistent with their DSM constructs. A pilot exploration of the validity of the DSM-IV constructs of cognitive disorder and its subgroups performed on the redistributed data suggested that these constructs have similar usefulness.