BURN INJURIES, PSYCHIATRIC-DISORDERS AND LENGTH OF HOSPITALIZATION

The purpose of this work was to investigate whether differences in len gth of hospitalization exist between burn patients with and without ps ychiatric comorbidity and, if so, why. The method undertaken was a ret rospective file study from 1981 to 1995. Psychiatric patients with acc idental burns are hospitalized longer than nonpsychiatric patients. Ho wever, psychiatric patients with self-inflicted burns are not hospital ized longer (after correction for the size of burn). The most likely r eason for this is an excess of substance-dependent patients in the gro up of psychiatric patients with accidental burns. The often reported l onger hospitalization of psychiatric patients may be restricted to sub stance-dependent patients and may be mediated by poorer physical condi tion. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.