Health attitudes of psychiatric inpatients.

Despite the high prevalence of medical illness in the mentally ill population, little is known about the health attitudes of patients with combined medical and psychiatric disorders. We compared the health attitudes of a group of inpatients with concomitant medical and psychiatric illness, a group of physically healthy psychiatric inpatients, and a group of normals. The instrument used was the Illness Attitude Scales, a self-rating scale designed to explore beliefs which can be responsible for hypochondriacal attitudes. A self-rating scale of psychological distress, the Symptom Questionnaire, was administered as well. Compared to normals, psychiatric patients displayed more hypochondriasis. There were no significant differences in psychological distress or health attitudes between patients with concomitant physical and psychiatric disorder and physically healthy psychiatric patients.