The average length of stay and psychiatric symptoms

Abstract

This study was investigated the average length of stay (LOS) of acute psychiatric in-patients. Samples are 2,040 acute psychiatric in-patients at Psychiatric hospital by purposive sampling. Demographic data and clinical symptoms according to the questionnaire (Health of the Nation outcome scales: HoNOS) were collected Percentage, arithmetic mean and standard deviation were analyzed. The average length of stay was 17.6±12.3 days. The top three syndromes having maximum LOS were epilepsy, mental retardation and organic brain syndromes at 22.1±17.4, 20.3±13.1 and 20.0±8.4 respectively. Schizophrenia, alcohol related psychiatric disorders and mood disorders were 3 most frequent diagnoses at 54.5, 15.2 and 9.7 % respectively .The majority psychiatric symptoms were behavioral problems, aggression, hallucination, delusion and social relationship problems at 27.7, 24.8, 24.0 and 24.0% respectively. In conclusion, HoNOS could be the standard tool to evaluate LOS and clinical symptoms for psychiatric hospital and provide reliable data for health consumer, policy makers and providers.