Liaison psychiatry, also known as consultative psychiatry or consultation-liaison psychiatry is the branch of psychiatry that specialises in the interface between medicine and psychiatry, usually taking place in a hospital or medical setting. Liaison psychiatry has areas of overlap with other distinct disciplines including psychosomatic medicine, health psychology and neuropsychiatry. The role of the consultation-liaison psychiatrist is to see patients currently admitted as general medical inpatients at the request of the treating medical or surgical consultant or team. This is known as a 'consult' and constitutes the consultation facet of the role.

Scope

"Consults" occur when the primary care team has questions about a patient's mental health, or how that patient's mental health is affecting his or her care and treatment. The psychiatric team works as a "liaison" between the medical team and the patient. Issues that arise include assessing the capacity of a patient to consent to treatment, attempting to settle conflicts between patients with the primary care team, and the intersection of problems in both physical and mental health, as well as patients who may report physical symptoms as a result of a mental disorder, and assessing patients for abnormal illness behaviour. Delirium is commonly diagnosed and treated by psychiatrists. Finally, patients who have attempted suicide and subsequently admitted for medical treatment are generally treated by this field.

In some hospitals, the Consultation-liaison psychiatry team also covers psychiatric presentations to the Emergency Department, while in others doctors from the psychiatric unit will cover this area.