Hospitalization trends and chronobiology for mental disorders in Spain from 2005 to 2015

ABSTRACT

Rhythm research has had a long tradition in psychiatry, especially in affective disorders. The study of trends in incidence plays a central role in epidemiology and public health. The aims of this research were to describe the socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of persons admitted for psychiatric hospitalization and their trends and periodicity in cases (global and by groups) in Spain over the 11 year study span. We conducted a cross-sectional study of the hospital discharge database of Castilla y León from 2005 to 2015, selecting hospitalizations for psychiatric reasons. Trends in the rates of hospitalization were studied by joinpoint regression analysis. Time series analysis for periodicities was done by spectral analysis, fast Fourier transform, and cosinor analysis. Some 49501 hospitalizations due to psychiatric disorders, out of 2717192 hospital admissions, took place during the study span. Hospitalizations for psychosis were frequent (15949, 32.2%), while such for eating disorders were infrequent, but showed the highest average stay (28 days) and DRG relative weight (2.41). The general trend was a statistically significant 2% annual increase in psychiatric hospitalizations over the 11 year span; substance abuse was the only exception to this trend. The whole population and the subgroups of psychosis and bipolar disorders showed significant circannual (one-year) variation in admissions. The rhythm percentage of the global group was 11.4%, while the rhythm percentages of the psychosis, bipolar, and eating disorders were 17.1%, 17.5%, and 9.6%, respectively (p < .05).

KEYWORDS:

• Hospitalization
• mental disease
• seasonality
• epidemiology
• health service
• Spain

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Dirección General de Información, Calidad y Prestación Farmacéutica of the Gerencia Regional de Salud de Castilla y León for providing the data of the CMBD (Nº Exp. GRS2024/A/19 and GRS 1801/A/18). This research was sponsored by Junta de Castilla y León, SAN/328/2018 and by The Institute for Biomedical Research of Salamanca (IBSAL), grant number IBYG19/00002.

Disclosure of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interests for this research.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Consejería de Sanidad, Junta de Castilla y León [Orden SAN/328/2018]; Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Salamanca [IBSAL IBYG19/00002].