Diabetes mellitus (DM) has been associated with major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and mild cognitive impairment. To determine the psychiatric and somatic comorbidity in diabetic patients treated by our Liaison Psychiatry Unit.

Sociodemographic variables (age, sex, marital status, place of residence) and clinical (somatic disease that motivates the admission, comorbid somatic pathology, number of concomitant somatic diseases, drug consumption and its type, psychiatric history, previous psychiatric diagnosis, number of concomitant psychiatric disorders).

Epidemiological study of 172 diabetic patients, from the total of 906 consulted from 1 January 2012 until 31 December 2014.

The study complies with the principles of justice, non-maleficence, autonomy and beneficence.

The average age is 72 years, 50% are women, 49.4% are married, and 54.1% live in rural areas. Somatic diseases that most frequently motivate admission at the hospital are the endocrine-metabolic (14%), gastrointestinal (12%) and cardiovascular (12.2%). A total of 32.5% of the sample have six comorbid somatic diseases and 55.2% five. A percentage of 14.5 of patients recognize consumption of toxic (cigarettes–12.2%–7.6% Alcohol). One hundred and eight patients have a history of psychiatric disorders (62.8%), especially anxiety disorders (28.4%), depression (14.5%) and organic mental disorders (11.1%).

There is a high psychiatric and somatic comorbidity in diabetic patients, therefore it would be desirable early diagnosis and treatment to provide symptomatic control of both types of pathologies.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.