Objectives: To examine a sample of adults with mental health disorders attending at an area psychiatric service, for the presence of impairments in language, communication and swallowing, using a test battery administered by speech and language therapists.

Method: The study surveyed a randomly selected sample (n = 60) of patients from an acute psychiatric inpatient unit and associated community services, using several standardised measures of language, communication and swallowing.

Results: On this test battery, over 80% (50/60) of subjects studied demonstrated impairment in language; while over 60% (37/60) presented with impairment in communication and discourse. Over 30% (18/58) of subjects assessed showed some impairment in swallowing.

Conclusion: Use of this test battery confirmed the presence of language, communication and swallowing impairments in many patients in this sample of attenders at a general psychiatry service. We suggest that this study provides evidence for a (currently unmet) need for specialist speech and language therapy assessment and support among this patient population.

Objectives: The aims of the audit were to monitor the activities of the liaison clinic over a 12 month period, to establish the number of attenders and non-attenders and to evaluate whether the service was meeting the needs of patients with perinatal disorders.

Method: The Coombe Women's Hospital is one of three maternity hospitals in Dublin and had 6,452 deliveries and 5,273 inpatient gynaecological procedures performed in 1994. The charts of all the patients who were given an appointment for the psychiatric clinic between January 1 and December 31, 1994 were reviewed.

Results: Fifty-six patients attended the clinic over the 12 month period, 38(68%) of whom were new referrals to the service. Twenty-two patients were antenatal, 20 were postnatal and 14 patients were attending the gynaecology department. Seventeen patients (30%) who were referred to the clinic failed to attend for their first appointment. Forty-one (73%) patients had sufficient symptomatology to make an ICD-10 diagnosis. Medication was prescribed for 58% of those who attended. Four patients were referred to their catchment area service for inpatient care: six patients were referred to their catchment area service for further outpatient care as they had psychiatric illnesses which predated their pregnancies.

Conclusions: The number of patients referred to the liaison service with postnatal depression is remarkably less than that anticipated and there is a high rate of defaulting among first attenders. Various recommendations are made to improve the effectiveness of the service.