Climatic conditions and southern state hospital admission rates

Abstract

Milledgeville (Ga.) State Hospital INTRODUCTIONThere is a conspicuous phenoinerion in state mental hospitals relating to fluctuations of admission rates. These seem to occur with almost predictable regularit,y and have been attributed to changing economic, social, and climatic conditions.Chambers' (2 ) study dealt exclusively wit,h seasonal variations in neuro-psychiatric admissions t80 a military hospital, which were highest in March. H a~c k '~) compared monthly admission rates in four state hospitals for three years, with highest admission rate in January. Hauck and A r m~t r o n g '~) exanlined admission rates to a state hospital over a 37 year period, the data categorized by sexes. The 1nont.h of highest'admissions was June. Abe based his study on seasonal variations in admission, presenting data not only from his own country but from European, African, and American cities. The highest admission rates were in the summer months. Hauck ( 3 ) and Hauck and A r m~t r o n g '~) attributed fluctuations in adiiiission rates to socio-economic factors while Chambers o ) and Abe o ) hypothesized climatic variables.This study undertakes to verify statist.ically in a large Southern state mental hospital that admission rates are correlated with higher temperatures and are not just, the result. of socio-economic fact'ors.'

Seasonal Affective Disorder: SAD or Fad?

“…Although numerous papers have been published o ve r th e yea rs th a t support the existence of seasonal differences in psychiatri c disorde rs (24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39), 41 many of these early papers do not seem readily applicable to support cu r rent notions of the entity of SAD . Although, Rosentha l et al briefly allude to t he numerous discrepancies in these early studies (40), Christensen et al in th e "Myths of Mid-Winter Depression," present a detailed literature r e view of t he conflicting nature of the empirical data that relates to se aso na l peaks of psychiatric disorders (41).…”

Weather and emotional state: a search for associations between weather and calls to telephone counseling services

“…Seasonal and monthly studies are represented by that of Stewart and Wildman (1967), who grouped months by conventional seasons and found that hospital psychiatric admissions peak in the summer (June, July and August). Pantelo (1970) found that hospital psychiatric admissions peak in the spring (March, April and May), but any statistically significant fluctuations in admissions disappeared when the 36 months under study were instead grouped by average temperature (9 lowest, 18 middle, 9 highest), thus implying that factors other than temperature might be responsible for the seasonal differences.…”

Summer in the city: Urban weather conditions and psychiatric emergency-room visits.

“…The sparse literature that does exist, however, suggests that there is a surprisingly direct relationship between weather conditions and a variety of disordered behaviors. For example, meteorological conditions have been linked to increases in suicides (Digon & Block, 1966), police incidents (Will & Sells, 1969), accident proneness (Moos, 1964), and psychiatric admission rates (Pantleo, 1970;Steward & Wildman, 1967).…”