Season-dependent symptoms in consultation-liaison patients

INTRODUCTION: We investigated those psychiatric patients whose reason for s eeking medical help was primarily a physical condition. Our objectives were to analyse to what extent they suffered from seasonal variation in mood an d behaviour during winter, and to examine whether these patients were evenl y distributed between the categories of the ICD-IO Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders (ICD-IO) by their primary diagnosis of mental di sorder. METHOD: Patients attending the psychiatric services of a consultation-liais on unit were interviewed for diagnosis, and were ashed to fill in a questio nnaire on seasonal variation in mood and behaviour. RESULTS: Our results suggest that there are many patients fulfilling the cr iteria based on the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ) for se asonal affective disorder (SAD) or for subsyndromal SAD, not only in the IC D-10 diagnosis category of mood (affective) disorders but also in other dis order categories. CONCLUSION: This observation is of importance to hospital and private clini cians, as it emphasizes the need to assess the clinical picture in detail a nd to consider treatment alternatives for patients presenting with mental d isorder with a seasonal pattern.