Psychiatric consultation for competency to refuse medical treatment. A retrospective study of patient characteristics and outcome.

Forty-one psychiatric consultations on medical-surgical inpatients for competency to refuse medical treatment were studied retrospectively. The competent (n = 16) and incompetent (n = 25) patients were compared in terms of demographic data, diagnoses, clinical variables, details about treatment refusal, and outcome following competency assessment. The incompetent patients tended to be men, the focus of more urgent requests, and to have refused operations. The incompetent patients tended to have organic brain syndromes; the competent patients had personality disorders, adjustment disorders, or no psychiatric diagnosis. Ultimate acceptance of treatment initially refused was common in both groups; differential psychiatric interventions were recommended. The process of psychiatric consultation appeared to facilitate acceptance of treatment initially refused.