Psychiatric Patients, Serious Medical Illness

People with severe mental illness have a substantially increased risk of undiagnosed and insufficiently treated somatic disease. Somatic Screening in the Capital Region Mental Health Service in Denmark (SomaScreen) is a service-level intervention implemented in psychiatric outpatient clinics in the Capital Region of Denmark to improve the detection and follow-up of somatic disease among patients with psychotic and affective disorders. This study evaluates whether integrating structured somatic screening into mental health services leads to improved identification and management of somatic disease compared with care as usual. Using a quasi-experimental controlled design with a matched cohort, outcomes among patients exposed to the SomaScreen intervention are compared with those of patients receiving usual care in comparable psychiatric outpatient clinics outside the Capital Region.