From June 25 to 27, the 12th annual meeting of the European Association of CL Psychiatry and Psychosomatics took place in Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands. This conference was organized with the support and assistance of the Netherlands Psychiatric Association. The theme of this year's conference was “evidence based medicine in CL psychiatry and psychosomatics.”
The scope and content differed in various ways from previous EACLPP conferences. It was the first time that preconference courses were organized, one of which was sponsored by the European Psychiatric Association. Also, this year, there was more explicit attention for child and adolescent CL psychiatry, for geriatric CL psychiatry, and for psychiatry in the primary care setting. In fact, due to the efforts of Peter Hindley and Arjan Theil, it was possible to follow a full-day child and adolescent CL psychiatry track. Finally, this was the first EACLPP conference that was accredited by the European Union of Medical Specialists, which is accepted by all medical specialist associations in Europe.
This broader scope was intended to make the conference more interesting to a wider audience. This seems to have worked, since the number of registrations exceeded that of previous EACLPP stand-alone conferences: there were 281 attendants representing 26 nationalities. Sixty-five abstracts were submitted, of which 52 were accepted as poster and 13 were accepted as oral presentations in one of the parallel symposia. The majority of these, together with abstracts submitted by speakers in plenary and parallel symposia, meant that 144 abstracts were published in the June issue of the Journal of Psychosomatic Research. The prize for best poster was awarded to K. Jansen from the University Medical Centre Groningen, the Netherlands, for the poster entitled: “Anxiety and depression are risk factors rather than consequences of functional somatic symptoms in a general population of adolescents: the TRAILS study.” The prize for best oral presentation was awarded to Dennis Ougrin from the Unit for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK, for the presentation entitled “Therapeutic assessment for adolescents presenting with self harm” [1].
The conference featured 6 plenary sessions and 16 parallel symposia, one of which was organized by the European Delirium Association. The evaluation showed that plenary sessions were most appreciated. Highlights of this conference were the opening symposium that was dedicated to the conference theme. David Streiner introduced the theme by focusing on the principles and shortcomings of EBM in general, while Graeme Smith focused on the problems encountered when trying to bring EBM into practice in the field of CL psychiatry and psychosomatics. Francis Creed discussed the approach of the UK National Institute of Clinical Excellence in developing a guideline for diagnosis and treatment of depression in the medically ill.
Other popular sessions included the plenary session on Collaborative Care, the Child and Adolescent CL psychiatry track, and the EACLPP working groups. In the first, Jurgen Unutzer presented the IMPACT study, a large multisite trial of collaborative, stepped care for depression in older adults with depression and comorbid medical disorders in primary care settings. Christina van der Feltz then discussed a successful Dutch adaptation of the IMPACT approach: the Depression Initiative.
At this conference, an exciting new venture was started. A new EACLPP working group on CL psychiatry was formed in collaboration with the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine (APM) based in the United States. This work group aims at producing a guiding document on some of the procedural aspects of CL psychiatry, for which the Dutch guideline on consultation psychiatry will serve as a working document [2]. The APM also sponsored a symposium on the “U.S. perspective on psychosomatic medicine.” Glenn Treisman discussed the limitation of EBM in psychosomatic medicine, Jurgen Unutzer talked about the development of collaborative care and Peter Shapiro presented an overview on depression in heart disease.
A “same case, different views” session was chaired by Frits Huijse before he gave his enjoyable retirement lecture: “Farewell to CL.” Frits, one of the founding members of the EACLPP, remains very active after his retirement, promoting integrated care and the use of the Intermed. In his lecture he argued that we should change the consultation service into an emergency psychiatric function for the complex medically ill and develop and negotiate needs-driven models for integrated care [3].
Generally, the conference was well appreciated. It was successful in its aim of combining a high scientific standard with a relaxed atmosphere. There was ample time to meet international colleagues in an informal way and many conference delegates hired bicycles and made the short trip to the beach. This is where the excellent conference dinner was held. It was another “first”—the restaurant was literally on the sunny beach of Noordwijk! The good food and wine, but also the seriously humorous verses of the poet laureate of the EACLPP, Francis Creed, thanking the organizers and speakers of the conference, will be lasting memories of those present.
FULL TEXT
