Community Determinants Of Psychiatric Hospitalization And Length Of Stay

This paper provides a framework for identifying characteristics of high-risk psychiatric clients based on two events: the probability of hospitalization and the length of stay (LOS) once hospitalized. A large portion of the variance, the probability of psychiatric hospitalization and length of stay, is explainable by prior service history, clinical symptoms and presenting problems of the client observed while in the community. This suggests that, for an outpatient treated population, the risk and duration of psychiatric hospitalization episodes can be ascertained prospectively and resources targeted appropriately. Additionally, the study shows that the factors associated with one event, i.e. hospitalization, do not necessarily influence the other, i.e. LOS, suggesting that a reliable model for predicting high-risk clients requires the incorporation of both events, simultaneously. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.