Sociodemographic Profile and Diagnostic Pattern of Psychiatric Patients Admitted Across One Year: Chart Review from Tertiary Care Hospital

ABSTRACT

Background: Mental health problems contribute significantly to morbidity and mortality across the globe. The impact is more visible in developing countries where less than one in five individuals with psychiatric disorder receives any form of psychiatric help despite immense need. Most of the states in India lack data about the pattern of psychiatric services use in general population thus making it difficult to plan accordingly, The present study was carried out to understand the Sociodemographic profile of inpatient psychiatric services beneficiaries and pattern of psychiatric illnesses among them. Methods: Retrospectively one-year data of admitted patients from July 2017 to June 2018 were extracted manually from the patient files. Results: The study demonstrated that younger individuals were most common recipient of inpatient services followed by middle age patients. Males availed services more frequently and occupied more than 70% of beds at any given time. Schizophrenia (24.8) and bipolar disorders (23.7%) were most common diagnosis and represented almost half of the admitted patients. The other common diagnosis included unspecified psychosis (17.35%), substance use disorders (10.32%) and depressive disorders (4.1%) and dissociative disorders (2.18%). The other categories of diagnosis were barely represented including various childhood and geriatric psychiatric disorders despite the sizeable caseload in community settings. Conclusion: The Sociodemographic profile of psychiatric inpatients was similar to community settings where younger individuals were over represented. Among the patients male preponderance was observed which denotes social and cultural framework of community.