People with factitious disorder aren't merely "faking it" — they go to great lengths to make themselves or others appear ill. Their behaviors may involve significant self-harm or other extreme behaviors to sustain the illusion of illness. This used to be known by the term “Munchausen disorder.”

Involuntary grinding of teeth, which especially occurs during sleep but can also occur in the daytime. In 5% of cases this can cause severe health problems, such as destruction of tooth structure, temporomandibular joint dysfunction, myofascial pain, and sleep disturbances.

This sheet guides you in how to use medications to rapidly treat patients with severe mania. Many of these patients have bipolar disorder; others may have schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, while others may have arrived on your unit with a murky psychiatric history but with agitation, racing thoughts and other hallmarks of mania.

Occasionally you will encounter patients who report having multiple personalities or alters. Formerly called “multiple personality disorder,” this condition is now termed Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Here are the essential points to know about this disorder.

Many patients with substance use disorders suffer from anxiety and agitation and a common challenge on inpatient units is to steer such patients away from benzodiazepines and toward alternatives.

Passing of loose or watery stools, at least three times in a 24-hour period. Often due to infectious etiology (eg, rotovirus, norovirus, adenoviruses, E. coli) but can occur as a side effect to medications. Most cases resolve with routine over-the-counter treatment.

Many patients that you will admit to the hospital have significant anxiety. Often this is anxiety related to depression or psychosis, but sometimes this is an actual anxiety disorder. In this fact sheet, we discuss an efficient and rapid method for screening and making a provisional diagnosis of an anxiety disorder. 

Adult ADHD can become a contentious issue on the inpatient unit, primarily because the treatment of choice, psychostimulants, is a substance of abuse for some people. Some units have a blanket policy of not prescribing stimulants. In other cases, it is a doctor-specific issue, with some making withholding stimulants a part of their own practice. There are rationales for both points of view.