Geriatric vs. Non-Geriatric Psychiatric Hospitalization to the Psychiatric Services of a General Hospital in Chile

Abstract

Introduction: It is estimated that Chilean geriatric population (≥65 years) will hit 16% in the year 2030. Psychiatric longer stays have been described for those ≥ 65 years vs. < 65 years. We aim to describe the characteristics associated with lengths of stay in our psychiatric unit. Material and methods: Retrospective review of 3112 admissions between July 2001 and June 2010 to the general psychiatric service of the Pontific Catholic University of Chile. Results: 5.1% (n=132) of the sample was geriatric patients. The average length of stay for this group was 12.4 days (p=0.41). Both the geriatric and non-geriatric population presented a high prevalence of affective disorders (63.7% and 55.1%, respectively). In the geriatric group, there was a higher presence of bipolar disorder (27.3 vs. 19.5%; p<0.05) and dementia (16.7% vs. 0.5%). In contrast, for ≥ 65 years, there was significantly less prevalence of adaptive and anxiety disorders (3% vs. 13%; p<0.01). There was just one case of personality disorder and no cases of eating disorders in the geriatric group. There were no differences in the lengths of stay according to diagnosis. Conclusions: We did not find longer stay times, in general or associated with specific diagnoses, in geriatric patients versus non-geriatric patients.