Hospitalization durations and remission rates of patients in a psychiatry clinic

Objective: The duration of hospitalization is related to many well-documented factors in literature. However, little is known about psychiatric patients and psychiatric service delivery in non-Western developing countries. It is supposed that major contributing factors in discharge are remission rates and functional levels. Therefore, this naturalistic preliminary study aimed at analyzing and describing the hospitalization duration and remission rates of a psychiatric population treated in the mental health inpatient facility.

Methods: A total of 88 male patients, who were hospitalized in a psychiatry clinic were included in the study. They were evaluated at admission and before discharge using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and the Clinic Global Impression Scale (CGI).Other variables, including length of stay, number of previous admissions, demographic characteristics, and diagnosis were also assessed.

Results: Mean of the total scores on BPRS were declined from 24.95 to 13, and the mean CGI scores were declined from 3.85 to 2.04 during hospitalization period. Mean length of hospitalization was 7.91 days.

Conclusion: Our study shows that patients are discharged from the hospital with approximately 50% decrease in symptom severity. Such research can contribute to understand better, the needs of psychiatric patients, and help to develop continuously improved service delivery and optimize therapeutic options.