Geriatric Mental Health in a Tertiary Care Centre: Socio-demographic and Clinical variables

Background: Nearly 50% of the aged have some physical ailment and are in need of active health care. Geriatric psychiatry is a sub-specialty of psychiatry, which deals with psychopathology occurring in the elderly and the various aetiological factors which cause the mental disorders in old age. Method: This is a descriptive study with sampling in a tertiary centre where the diagnoses were made based on the tenth edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD10) and were evaluated for sociodemographic and clinical variables as well as general medical conditions. Results: Mean age of the patients was 69.81 years, male constituted 73.58% and female 26.42%, Hindu were 56.60% and Islam 43.40%. Mean duration of stay in psychiatry ward was 5.7 days. 77.36% of patients were discharged on advice, 15.09% were transferred to another department, 1.89% absconded, 1.89% referred to another hospital and 3.77% referred to another department. 9.62% patients had general medical conditions alone and 40.38% had psychiatric disorders alone while 50% had combined psychiatric disorders with general medical conditions. 42.31% patients had organic, including symptomatic, mental disorders; 3.85% had mental and behavioural disorders due to psychoactive substance use; 26.92% had schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorders; 28.85% had mood [affective] disorders; 5.77% patients had neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders. Conclusion: Within the limitations of nongeneralizability of findings, present study throws light in important areas of geriatric mental health including general medical conditions.