OBJECTIVE To assess personal autonomy of long-stay psychiatric inpatients, to identify those patients who could be discharged and to evaluate the impact of sociodemographic variables, social functioning, and physical disabilities on their autonomy was also assessed. METHODS A total of 584 long-stay individuals of a psychiatric hospital (96% of the hospital population) in Southern Brazil was a...

The length of stay (L.O.S.) in psychiatric inpatient units has become increasingly relevant as external pressures for economic justification of this expensive treatment modality have reinforced clinical and research misgivings about possible adverse effects of hospitalization (Krishner 1982). In a country like India, where the number of psychiatric beds is 0.03 to 0.04 per thousand population, ...

OBJECTIVE To identify physical disorders associated with increased rate of use of psychiatric services. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of routine abstracts of general hospital inpatient records linked with those of psychiatric care, for inpatients with physical disorders with possible psychiatric associations and for controls. SETTING Oxfordshire health district. SUBJECTS Inpatients aged 1...

BACKGROUND Hospital inpatients often experience medical and psychiatric problems simultaneously. Although this implies a certain relationship between healthcare utilization and costs, this relationship has never been systematically reviewed. OBJECTIVE The objective is to examine the extent to which medical-psychiatric comorbidities relate to health-economic outcomes in general and in differen...

BACKGROUND Some physicians have reported lower serum albumin levels in patients with major depression in Western countries. In this study, the relationship between serum albumin levels and mood disorders (including mania and major depression) was investigated during the acute phases in Taiwanese psychiatric inpatients. METHODS A review of medical charts during a 1-year period was carried out ...

This study was aimed to screen the patients for phenylketonuria among chronic psychiatric inpatients. A total of 577 cases were studied which included mentally retarded patients, schizophrenics and those suffering from depressive disorders. During the extensive screening not a single positive case could be identified. The findings of this screening support the previous studies. Looking at low i...