The dependent patient in a psychiatric inpatient setting: Relationship of interpersonal dependency to consultation and medication frequencies

To examine the relationship between interpersonal dependency and medical service use in a hospital setting, the number of medical consultations and psychotropic medication prescriptions were compared in matched, mixed-sex samples of 40 dependent and 40 nondependent psychiatric inpatients. Results indicated that dependent patients received more medical consultations and a greater number of medications than did nondependent patients with similar demographic and diagnostic profiles. Implications of these results for theoretical models of interpersonal dependency and for previous research on the dependency-help-seeking relationship are discussed. Practical implications of these findings for work with dependent patients are summarized.