Carson et al 1 reported that one third of the patients referred by general practitioners to general neurology outpatient clinics had symptoms that were poorly explained by identifiable organic disease. Similar trends have been reported from a developing country—namely, India. Bagadiaet al,2 for example, have reported that 57% of non-acutely ill patients attending a general hospital medical outpatient department scored high on the general health questionnaire, indicating a likelihood of psychiatric morbidity. The same authors in another study3 have reported that in a general medical …