[Inpatient management of adolescent psychiatric patients. A single day study]

The distribution of disorders in a one-day sample of 1806 adolescents receiving inpatient psychiatric care and classified with the diagnostic system ICD-9 is described. Of the inpatient psychiatric facilities for adolescents in the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin, 85% responded to our questionnaire. The main findings were: 1) More of the inpatients were male than female (1:0.8); 2) 80% of the patients were being treated at non-university facilities; 3) differences in diagnose between university and other hospitals were small and concerned only psychosis, eating disorders and oligophrenia; 4) the most frequent diagnoses were psychosis and neurosis (20% each), followed by special symptoms/syndromes and conduct disorders (between 10% and 15% each) and emotional disorders (10%); 5) other disorders were less common (under 10% each); 6) a comparison of the different Länder in the Federal Republic indicated that some regions do not have enough inpatient facilities.