Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:1241-1245
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
Physical findings in a psychiatric outpatient clinic
LN Muecke and DW Krueger
To determine the frequency of previously undiagnosed, positive physical
findings in a psychiatric outpatient clinic population, the authors
examined the case records of 910 consecutively admitted patients who had
been given screening physical examinations including urinalyses. They found
that 20.4% of the patients had some medical abnormality that was previously
undiagnosed, and they encourage psychiatrists to make the physical
examination a routine part of their total psychiatric evaluation.
