Morbidity of DSM-IV Axis I disorders in patients with noncardiac chest pain: Psychiatric morbidity linked with increased pain and health care utilization.

The present study examined current and lifetime psychiatric morbidity, chest pain, and health care utilization in 229 patients with noncardiac chest pain (NCCP), angina-like pain in the absence of cardiac etiology. Diagnostic interview findings based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) revealed a psychiatrically heterogeneous sample of whom 44% had a current Axis I psychiatric disorder.

Identification of high-risk behaviors among victimized adolescents and implications for empirically supported psychosocial treatment.

An adolescent's possible response to being the victim of interpersonal violence is not limited to posttraumatic stress disorder and depression but may also involve a host of developmental effects, including the occurrence of high-risk behaviors that may have a significant and negative impact on the adolescent's psychological and physical health. Identifying such high-risk behaviors, understanding their possible link to a previous victimization incident, and implementing interventions that have been demonstrated to reduce such behaviors may help decrease potential reciprocal interactions between these areas. Clinicians in psychiatric practice may be in a unique position to make these connections, since parents of adolescents may perceive a greater need for mental health services for youth engaging in problematic externalizing behaviors than for those displaying internalizing symptoms.