The 8th Scientific Meeting of the European Association of Consultation–Liaison Psychiatry and Psychosomatics (EACLPP) Congress and the 8th National Congress of Consultation–Liaison Psychiatry took place on September 21–24, 2005. The venue was Istanbul, an imperial city that bridges continents and cultures. A total of 372 attendees, 205 national and 167 international delegates, attended the European congress. Three lectures, 9 symposia, 10 workshops, and 4 poster sessions were held. In addition, nearly 200 research papers were presented and 108 abstracts were published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research. The rest of the abstracts were published in the congress book. When the abstracts were examined, it was seen that the majority of the research focused on somatization, depression, child psychiatry, quality of life, and cultural issues.
The opening lecture was concerned with the historical development of mental health in the Turkish culture. It concluded with the idea that the incorporation of Consultation–Liaison Psychiatry (CLP) into Turkish psychiatry brings Turkish psychiatry back to its culturohistorical roots. After this, short national presentations took place. Presenters reflected on their current situation of CLP, main concerns, and prospective plans in different European countries. This provided important insights into the status of CLP in other countries and the development of a new integrated understanding within Europe.
On the first day of the congress, three symposia were held, concerning dementia, delirium, and depression; quality and legal aspects of CLP; and models of integrated care. The first symposium started with a review about diagnostic issues of depression in stroke and Parkinson's disease and discussed the results of a large prospective study that investigated the predictors of post-stroke depression. The symposium on delirium highlighted its prevalence in different populations and settings and its associated risk factors. An attention-grabbing finding regarding depression in primary care settings was that overrecognition and overtreatment were on the increase. An interesting presentation about the medical history of patients who had committed suicide in Slovenia provided insight into suicide prevention.
The second parallel symposium opened with a highly important issue: medicolegal issues involving the evaluation of competence, refusal of treatment or requests for physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, and the role of CLP. The presentation highlighted that only two countries had national guidelines on delirium treatment and emphasized the lack of guidelines on delirium in European countries. In the third parallel symposium, presenters from different countries talked about the different models of integrated psychosomatic care. This was a great opportunity to see and evaluate various points of views and applications in other European countries.
Four workshops took place in the afternoon of the first day. Research methods in CLP included valuable data on the current situation of research in CLP, the importance of multicenter research, and the development of research networks between different countries. Training, another important issue, was presented in a different workshop. This workshop, which included the EACLPP guidelines for training in CLP and psychosomatics and a review of the first APM training for the subspecialty of psychosomatics, centered on organizing a national CLP course.
The major issues of the second day were transplantation, transcultural issues, and psychotherapy in the medically ill. The evaluation of transplant patients and the psychosocial conditions and quality of lives of donors were discussed in light of research findings. A very interesting area of research was transcultural aspects of somatization across four European countries. These presentations were very valuable in recognizing culture-related differences in somatization patients. In the afternoon, transcultural issues were further discussed in another symposium on functional symptoms, which provided culture-specific differences in symptom presentations and a chance to see and understand cultural aspects in symptom presentation.
The last symposium of the second day indicated that psycho-oncology has developed into an important subspecialty within CLP over recent years. In addition to the prevalence of psychiatric problems in oncology patients, the importance of CL psychiatrists for patients and oncology staff was discussed. Psycho-oncology was discussed again on the last day in a symposium that centered on the progress in genetics, prevention, communication, targeted therapies, neurocognitive studies, existential issues, and end-of-life care. The workshops on the second day of the congress incorporated some major issues such as CL nursing, immigrants, and families of the medically ill and a Danish training program for home practitioners in the management of patients with functional complaints.
The last round of symposia took place on the morning of the third day. Further transcultural issues in somatization were highlighted, including an interesting presentation on the development of eating disorders from a transcultural perspective in which the importance of cultural factors influencing body image and gender issues were presented. Main highlights on the importance of psychopharmacology for CL psychiatrists and non-psychiatry physicians were presented in the second symposium. Within this symposium, the challenges and importance of using psychopharmacological drugs in pregnancy and in the perioperative period were also discussed. Before the closing ceremony, three important symposia took place in the afternoon. Two of these furthered the discussion on psycho-oncology and transcultural aspects of functional complaints. These meetings served as a closure and summarized the most important issues discussed on these areas during the course of the congress. The last symposium of the congress was on the main issues to be presented during the EACLPP Lausanne 2006 meeting.
The closing ceremony included three awards for best poster presentations. Finally, the EACLPP meeting took place and new council members were elected. Overall, two important issues had been raised as a result of the congress: integration models and importance of cultural issues in CLP. Combining a national congress with a European congress has been very beneficial in attracting local participants and integrating national–cultural diversities into the framework of discipline. The congress has also been especially historical in promoting and widening Turkish CLP.
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