Screening of distress among hospitalized patients in a department of internal medicine

• We examine the association between medical illnesses and distress.
• Increasing information on distress will increase quality of hospital stay.
• Increasing information on distress will decrease the worsening of distress.

A psychosomatic approach to the basic screening of distress for patient care in hospitals and other health services is presented. The aims of this study were to verify association between: (1) medical illnesses and distress; (2) patients’ needs and distress; (3) type of illness and patients’ needs; (4) patients’ needs and sense of coherence. One hundred and eighty-nine patients (78 F and 111 M, average age 65 years ± 8.43) were assessed by self-report questionnaires. We found that higher anxiety and/or depression levels were associated with urogenital (p = 0.026), rheumatologic (p = 0.006), oncological (p = 0.011), neurological (p = 0.026) and respiratory (p = 0.013) illnesses. Higher distress scoring was associated with rheumatologic illnesses (p = 0.024) and illnesses of the liver and digestive system (p = 0.037) while a higher severity of distress was associated with oncological illnesses (p = 0.011). Depression/anxiety were associated with the need to speak to a psychologist (p = 0.050), to a spiritual advisor (p = 0.009), to be more reassured by relatives (p = 0.017), to feel less abandoned (p = 0.036). Only low sense of coherence was associated with the need for greater dialogue with physicians (p = 0.012), the need to participate less in treatment decisions (p = 0.041), the need to feel less left to one's own devices (p = 0.023). Several needs are associated with medical illnesses. In conclusion, these results indicate that early psychological screening could be important to avoid worse or chronic distress.