Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T23:46:25.019Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Referrals to an acute psychiatry department at day and night. Are there diagnostic differences?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2009

John E Berg
John E Berg*
Affiliation:
Department of Acute Psychiatry, Lovisenberg Diaconal Hospital, Oslo, Norway
*
Correspondence to: Dr J.E. Berg, Blakstad Hospital, PO Box 83, 1309 Rud, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Persons with mental diseases are admitted to acute care psychiatric units during the day and night. The distribution of diagnoses given to these patients according to time of day has not previously been studied. All referrals during one year to a 27-bed facility were studied using the computerized medical records. 998 patients were referred during the year, of whom 480 were female. 47% arrived within office hours, 41% in the evening and 12% during the night. In order of frequency, patients with psychotic disorders comprised 26%, narrowly followed by the affective disorders (25%), substance abuse disorders (17%), then personality disorders (13%) and crises and anxiety disorders (12%). There is a tendency towards patients with lower diagnostic ICD-numbers (especially psychotic and affective diagnoses) arriving earlier than the other diagnostic groups. The diurnal variations in diagnoses were otherwise small.

Women with personality disorders were almost thrice as frequent as males, whereas males with substance abuse were almost twice as frequent as females. Patients above 60 years of age with non-abuse related organic disorders were mainly males (26 versus 7).

Patients > 60 years of age (N = 57) had the following frequencies of admission through the 24 hour period: 54.4%, 36.8% and 8.8% (office hours, evening, night), whereas patients below 60 years of age (N = 941) had 46.7%, 41.0% and 12.3%, respectively.

Keywords

Acute psychiatrydiagnosisreferraltime of day
Type
Original Article
Information
Journal of Psychiatric Intensive Care , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , December 2009 , pp. 95 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © NAPICU 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arabi, Y., Alshimemeri, A. and Taher, S. (2006) Weekend and weeknight admissions have the same outcome of weekday admissions to an intensive care unit with onsite intensivist coverage. Critical Care Medicine. 34: 605–611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berg, J. (2007) Når på døgnet legges pasienter inn i en akuttpsykiatrisk avdeling? Tidsskrift Norske Lægeforening. 127: 590–591.Google Scholar
Hesse, M. and Thylstrup, B. (2008) Inter-rater agreement of comorbid DSM-IV personality disorders in substance abusers. BMC Psychiatry. 8: 1–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Luyt, C.-E., Combes, A., Aegerter, P., Guidet, B., Trouillet, J.-L., Gibert, C. and Chastre, J. (2007) Mortality among patients admitted to incentive care units during weekday day shifts compared with “off” hours. Critical Care Medicine. 35: 3–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mariani, J., Horey, J., Bisaga, A., Aharonovich, E., Raby, W., Cheng, W.et al. (2008) Antisocial behavioral syndromes in cocaine and cannabis dependence. American Journal of Drug Alcohol Abuse. 34: 405–414.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Monras, M., Mondon, S. and Jou, J. (2008) Alcohol-dependent patients with benzodiazepines abuse: Its relation to personality disorders and neuropsychological impairment. Medicina Clínica. 130(18): 693–695.Google ScholarPubMed
Regier, D.A., Farmer, M.E., Rae, D.S., Locke, B.Z., Keith, S.J., Judd, L.L. and Goodwin, F.K. (1990) Comorbidity of mental disorders with alcohol and other drug abuse. Results from the epidemiological catchment area (ECA) study. Journal of the American Medical Association. 264: 2511–2518.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sheu, C., Tsai, J., Hung, J., Yang, C., Hung, H., Chong, I.et al. (2007) Admission time and outcomes of patients in a medical intensive care unit. Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences. 23: 395–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vehviläinen, A.T., Kumpusalo, E.A. and Takala, J.K. (1988) Saturday night fever? Reasons for referral from health centres to hospitals during weekends in Finland. Family Practice. 15: 507–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar