Prevalence of Mental Disorders and Characteristics of Psychiatric Patient in Inpatient Unit in Ramathibodi Hospital

Abstract

Objective :

To study the prevalence and clinical characteristics of mental disorders among the patients who were admitted in the inpatient psychiatric ward, Department of Psychiatry, Ramathibodi Hospital

Methods :

The author conducted the 3-year retrospective descriptive study by reviewed and collected the data from chart of the patients who were admitted in the psychiatric ward, Department of Psychiatry, Ramathibodi Hospital during 1 July 2009 to 30 June 2012.

Results :

The data of 576 patients, who were admitted in the psychiatric ward, were reviewed. Total number of admission was 825 times. We found that most patients were aged 18-60 years (77.0%), female (55.7%), and admitted from outpatient unit (50.8%). Two most common indications for admission is symptoms do not improved with treatments as outpatient (40.5%) and risk to harm to themselves (37.3 %). The common prevalence of the disease is in two groups, schizophrenia, schizotypal, and delusional disorder (30.8 %) and mood disorders (29.8 %), respectively. Average length of hospital stay (median) was 14.9±15.1 (11) days, and significantly different in each group of diseases (p=0.001). Rate of readmission during the study was 3% and common in mood disorders (1.2%).

Conclusions :

The prevalence of the disease was often founded in groups. schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorder and mood disorders, each disease was different in the length of stay. And the highest readmission rate was mood disorders. Future studies require more information about factors associated with length of hospital stay and readmission rate.