Does psychiatric comorbidity increase length of stay in medical, surgical and gynecological departments?

Abstract

Several studies from Anglo-American countries indicate that in non-psychiatric hospital departments mentally ill patients have a longer length of hospital stay than mentally well, while in Austria and Germany, until now, no studies concerning this question exist. Therefore, we investigated the influence of psychiatric comorbidity on the length of stay in 608 patients of medical, surgical and gynecological departments in Vienna and Tyrol. Based on the Clinical Interview Schedule, 28.1% of the patients in this sample suffered from psychiatric disorders. The presence of psychiatric disorders, as well as type of hospital department (medical department), higher age, more previous non-psychiatric treatment periods, and more somatic diagnoses predicted a longer duration of inpatient treatment. To avoid the influence of cofounding variables, psychiatric cases were matched with psychiatric non-cases. The mentally ill group was treated for a markedly longer period as inpatients than the mentally well. Patients with a diagnosis of dementia or of substance abuse showed a significantly increased length of stay, while we could not confirm this for other psychiatric diagnoses.