RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: Due to the scarcity of data and psychiatric inpatient beds in general hospitals it is a priority to generate information about the service provided in an inpatient unit of a general hospital. METHOD: Between June 1st 2004 and may 31 2005 a naturalistic, prospective and descriptive study took place in the psychiatric inpatient unit of Hospital "T. Alvarez". RESULTS: The average age of intern patients was 36.7 years, the reason for admission was mostly due to psychotic states and self injury risk. 82 admissions took place during a one year follow up (for 71 patients admitted during that time) and 68 were discharged. 48.8% had previously been admitted and 25.6% of them had been admitted 4 o more times. 29.3% were admitted through judicial intervention. 19.1% were discharged without their corresponding medical advice. The most frequent diagnosis were: schizophrenia (29.4%), Substance abuse (22.1%); Borderline Personality (10.3%), Bipolar disorder (8.8%), and Depressive Disorder (7.4%). The average length of stay was 45.4 days (bed turn: 4.1) with 90% of them lasting less than 90 days. CONCLUSIONS: These data may be compared to other data produced in other psychiatric units of our city and shed light on the problems to follow the classical WHO advice to use general hospital facilities for psychiatric inpatients.
