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The British Journal of Psychiatry (2005) 187: 109-120
© 2005 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

REVIEW ARTICLE

Meta-review of high-quality systematic reviews of interventions in key areas of liaison psychiatry

RACHEL RUDDY, MRCPsych

Academic Unit of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

ALLAN HOUSE, MRCPsych

Academic Unit of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

Correspondence: Dr Rachel Ruddy, Academic Unit of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9LT, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 113 343 2741; fax: +44 (0) 113 243 3719; e-mail: R.A.Ruddy{at}leeds.ac.leeds.ac.uk

Declaration of interest None. Funding detailed in Acknowledgements.

Background When planning and delivering a liaison psychiatry service it is important to have an understanding of the research evidence supporting the use of interventions likely to be delivered by the service.

Aims To identify high-quality systematic reviews for all interventions in three defined areas of liaison psychiatry, to summarise their clinical implications and to highlight areas where more research is needed. The three areas were the psychological effects of physical illness or treatment, somatoform disorders and self-harming behaviour.

Method Computerised database searching, secondary reference searching, hand-searching and expert consultation were used to identify relevant systematic reviews. Studies were reliably selected, and quality-assessed, and data were extracted and interpreted by two reviewers.

Results We found 64 high-quality systematic reviews. Only 14 reviews included meta-analyses.

Conclusions Many areas of liaison psychiatry practice are not based on high-quality evidence. More research in this area would help inform development and planning of liaison psychiatry services.


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