Mental and physical illness coexist by a number of mechanisms. The significance of the physical illness to the psychiatric treatment can be various and the optimum medical screening procedures in both adult and child- and adolescent psychiatry are still a matter of discussion.

The aim of this article is to evaluate the medical screening of adolescent psychiatric patients. Based on a survey of significant literature concerning mainly adult psychiatric patients and screening methods in most of the adolescent psychiatric in- and outpatient centres in The Netherlands combined with an evaluation of a screening program in an adolescent psychiatric inpatient unit the authors present their recommendations for a graded utilization of screening-tests in psychiatric hospitalized adolescents.