Premium
The dependent patient in a psychiatric inpatient setting: Relationship of interpersonal dependency to consultation and medication frequencies
Author(s) -
O'Neill Richard M.,
Bornstein Robert F.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.1012
Subject(s) - dependency (uml) , medical prescription , interpersonal communication , psychiatry , interpersonal relationship , psychology , psychiatric hospital , clinical psychology , medicine , nursing , social psychology , systems engineering , engineering
Abstract To examine the relationship between interpersonal dependency and medical service use in a hospital setting, the number of medical consultations and psychotropic medication prescriptions were compared in matched, mixed‐sex samples of 40 dependent and 40 nondependent psychiatric inpatients. Results indicated that dependent patients received more medical consultations and a greater number of medications than did nondependent patients with similar demographic and diagnostic profiles. Implications of these results for theoretical models of interpersonal dependency and for previous research on the dependency–help‐seeking relationship are discussed. Practical implications of these findings for work with dependent patients are summarized. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Clin Psychol 57: 289–298, 2001.