The coexistence of medical and psychiatric problems in psychiatric
inpatients often causes compliance difficulties, based on either irrational
and distorted fears of medical treatment or more rational concerns that
proposed psychiatric treatment could adversely affect a preexisting medical
condition. The authors propose the use of joint consultations, in which
both the psychiatrist and the other medical specialist meet together with
the patient, as a way of ameliorating such distortions and conflicts and
thereby improving compliance with both medical and psychiatric
treatment.Abstract Teaser