A Snapshot of Treatment of Inpatients with A Mood Disorder Episode: Does Theory Match Everyday Clinical Practice?

Abstract

Mood disorders represent a major cause of hospitalization in psychiatric ward. We focused on sex differences, therapies and rehospitalization rates/length of stay in inpatients with mood disorders. Rehospitalization is often observed in patients with mental disorders, with rates up to 80%. Socio-demographic features, clinical features and treatment type influence the length of stay. The objective of this study was to assess how the literature findings match everyday clinical practice in an acute psychiatric ward. We performed a retrospective observational study extracting data from our medical records from 1 st July 2012 to 1 st July 2014. 85 patients were eligible for the study; the overall number of admittances to the ward was 103. We have not found any difference in the rates of Bipolar Disorder between males and females, we failed to find an higher frequency of Depressive disorders in females. In our sample the rates of early readmission is 17.5%. Patients with an involuntary admission included exclusively those with a manic or hypomanic episode; patients with depressive episodes were more likely to have committed a suicide attempt.