Correlates of Length of Stay among Psychiatric In-Patients in a Tertiary Health Institution in Nigeria

There seems no much information about the patterns of Length of Stay (LOS) in Psychiatri c admissions and its associated factors in this environment and it could be a window into measures of efficiency of in-patient care and quality of care. The aim is to describe the pattern of Length of Stay (LOS) and ascertain possible associations between Psychiatric diagnoses and other socio-demographic factors among in-patients of a psychiatric facility in a Nigerian University Teaching Hospital. It was a retrospective case-file study of all admissions and discharges, in the psychiatric in-patient ward of University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), between May, 2000 and April, 2005. The data generated was analyzed with SPSS version 11 to obtain frequency distributions and chi-square figures. The level of statistical significance was set at 5%. Within the study period, 502(63.6%) of the 789 records of admitted cases were analysed. 61.0% of the patients stayed on admission for about 30 days (4 weeks) (mean length of stay±SD was 23±19.1days). About 51.8% of the total admissions were females, 68.5% were in the age group 20-40 years, 58.0% were singles and 36.1% were students. The most frequent diagnosis was schizophrenia, 55.0 and 58.6% of the patients had first episode of psychiatric illness. Length of Stay (LOS) was significantly correlated with marital status and first episode psychiatric illness. A good social support may shorten the length of stay on psychiatric admission, hence, provision of goo d psycho-educations for all patients and their families as well as effective relapse prevention for first episode of psychiatric illnesses are highly recommended.