[Macroscopic indices of psychiatric hospital functions: evaluation based on data of remaining hospitalized patients]

In recent years, mental health administration in Japan has been changing its orientation from institutional care to community-based care. For this reason, we need new macroscopic indices evaluating psychiatric hospital functions. The most notable indices are data of the remaining hospitalized patients. In this paper, we discuss the macroscopic indices evaluating psychiatric hospital functions focusing on the data of the remaining hospitalized patients. The data are based on a survey of the number of monthly discharged patients who had been admitted to 1,617 psychiatric hospitals in the month of June 1998. The result shows that 1. 70.4% of admitted patients are discharged to communities within a year, 2. 18.3% of patients remain hospitalized one year after admission, and 3. 50% of admitted patients are discharged within 74.2 days. Examination of these data showed it is very useful to evaluate psychiatric hospital functions by categorizing psychiatric hospitals based on the rate of patients remaining hospitalized one year after admission. We also found that "the rate of admissions discharged to communities within a year", "the rate of patients remaining hospitalized after one year", "transition in the rate of patients remaining hospitalized", and "the number of days until 50% of admitted patients are discharged" can be used as effective and practical indices evaluating psychiatric hospital functions.