Lifetime Psychiatric Comorbidity and Diagnostic Trajectories in an Italian Psychiatric Sample.

Objective: Comorbidity in psychiatric patients has been widely examined in the literature, enucleating the role in misinterpretation of symptom's root in a multi-disease background, as well as the impact on the quality of life, outcome, and health-care effects. This research aimed to examine, in an Italian population of psychiatric patients, the diagnostic continuum in the context of lifetime psychiatric comorbidity, assessing possible differences related to the onset disorder.

Method: A retrospective analysis of medical records of 458 subjects, in which various psychiatric diagnoses were represented and categorized in 16 nosographic classes, was conducted.