Admissions, length of stay, and medication use among women in an acute care state psychiatric facility

Obiective: Despite growing numbers of elderly persons with serious mental i llness such as schizophrenia, little research has been conducted on the man ifestation of serious mental illness in later life, and our understanding o f the mental health care needs of this population is limited. This study ex amined length of stay and medication use among women age 50 and older admit ted to an acute care state psychiatric facility. Methods: A computerized re cord search for all women discharged froth a large urban state psychiatric facility over a one-year period was undertaken. Demographic and resource ut ilization data, including total length of stay and pharmacy utilization, we re obtained from the hospital database. Results: The database search produc ed die records of 564 women, with a mean age of 37.5 years. Women constitut ed 60 percent of patients over age 50. The mean length of stay was 16.1 day s for the entire group: for women under age 50 (N = 492), mean length of st ay was 15 days, and for women age 50 and older (N = 72), it was 23.1 days ( p = .01). Among those age 50 and older, 58.3 percent had a diagnosis of sch izophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, compared with only 38 percent of th ose under age 50. Conclusions: Our data suggest that women constitute the m ajority of patients over age 50 in a state psychiatric facility and that th ey have longer stays than younger women.