The Effects of Partial Hospitalization on Acute Psychiatric Hospital Readmission Days

Abstract

Using the theoretical construct of recidivism and pathway and gatekeeper variables associated with it, this study compared the effects of a combination of partial and acute psychiatric hospitalization and only acute psychiatric hospitalization on the total number of acute hospital readmission days over a 12 month period using a causal-comparative design. Two hundred and forty cases were randomly selected from an existing database which contained information on a population of urban insurance beneficiaries who had accessed psychiatric care during a two year period. The group accessing a combination of acute care and partial care had significantly higher readmission days. Age, number of outpatient sessions and Global Assessment of Functioning score at initial acute hospitalization also appeared to be influential pathway and gatekeeper variables. The highly skewed distribution of the data required use of nonparametric statistical tests and, therefore, further analysis was limited. It was concluded that treatment combinations can affect measures of outcome.