Hospital readmissions for patients with mental illness in Canada.

In-patient hospital mental health services represent a fraction of the spectrum of services in place for those who seek treatment for a mental illness. It is often when the conditions of the illness become most severe that inpatient hospital services are sought. Hospitalization is an important means of stabilizing deteriorating psychiatric conditions, of re-establishing discontinued regimens of prescribed medication and of helping to transition individuals to outpatient and community-based services. Hospitalizations for mental illness impose a high cost in terms of healthcare expenditures (Jacobs et al. 2006) and a disruptive burden on the personal and professional lives of the individuals suffering from mental illness. Many such individuals experience a “revolving door” of multiple re-hospitalizations. This article provides information on the patterns of oneyear readmissions (for any reason) to acute care hospitals in Canada among patients with mental illness as the most responsible diagnosis in their index admission during 2002–2003. It is based on data from the Hospital Morbidity Database and Hospital Mental Health Database of the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). Readmissions were deemed if the individual had more than one episode of hospitalization during the period 2002–2003 to 2003–2004.